BUSINESS BEFORE QUESTIONS

Leeds City Council Bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now considered.

Hon. Members: Object.
	 Bill t o be considered on Tuesday 27 October.

Reading Borough Council Bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now considered.

Hon. Members: Object.
	 Bill t o be considered on Tuesday 27 October.

City of Westminster Bill [ Lords]

Motion made,
	That so much of the Lords Message [12 October] as relates to the City of Westminster Bill [ Lords] be now considered.-( The Chairman of Ways and Means.)

Hon. Members: Object.
	 To be considered on Thursday 22 October.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE

The Secretary of State was asked-

Iran's Nuclear Programme

Jane Kennedy: What his latest assessment is of developments in Iran's nuclear programme; and if he will make a statement.

David Miliband: Iran's nuclear programme is the leading threat to the non-proliferation regime. The latest International Atomic Energy Agency report says that Iran has still not suspended its enrichment or heavy-water-related activities and has failed to engage with the IAEA on the possible military dimensions. The revelations about a secret site near Qom show Iran's disregard for its obligations to the IAEA and the United Nations Security Council, and increase our concerns about its intentions. The Geneva meeting on 1 October with the E3 plus 3 was a start to the essential process of engagement; there now needs to be intensive and serious follow-up.

Jane Kennedy: Does my right hon. Friend share the frustration of many ordinary people in Iran-they have shared this with me by e-mail-with the regime's complete refusal to engage with the international community on this issue? The regime is led by someone who not only denies the holocaust, but denies his own people a democratic outcome. Will my right hon. Friend consider what unilateral steps the United Kingdom could take to increase the pressure on Iran to engage more positively?

David Miliband: My right hon. Friend makes an important point about the Iranian people, some 50 or 60 per cent. of whom are under the age of 30. They represent a country of great civilisation and education, and they have internet access, to pick up on her point. The requirements on the regime can best be understood by realising that there will never be a better time for Iran to engage with the international community in the search for what Iran proclaims to be its only aim: civilian nuclear power.
	The United Kingdom is proud to be at the heart of the international drive to establish normal relations between Iran and the international community over the nuclear file. However, I am sure my right hon. Friend will have seen the important announcement by the Treasury in respect of a financial sanction for one of the banks that has been closely involved in proliferation-related activities. That represents the sort of step that she is suggesting.

David Amess: With Austria's leading energy company investing heavily in Iranian offshore and onshore oil, and with Germany being a big exporter to Iran, will the Secretary of State tell the House what pressure he is applying to our European partners to comply with sanctions in order to try to change the regime peacefully?

David Miliband: I do not have to tell the hon. Gentleman just about the pressure on other European countries; I can point him to the fact that the European Union-all 27 countries of it-has tougher sanctions than are required by the United Nations, which indicates how seriously Europe takes the issue.

Meg Munn: May I welcome the leading role that Britain is taking in Europe on this issue? What discussions has the Foreign Secretary had with other partners in Europe about their taking further steps and bringing further economic sanctions to bear?

David Miliband: At this moment, we are engaged in a critical phase of engagement with Iran. The President of the United States has said that he wants to reassess the situation at the end of the year, and he will do so with the international community. My hon. Friend is right to say that the dual track must be a dual track, in that engagement takes place, but increased pressure can be brought to bear, as appropriate. At the E3 plus 3 meeting that I chaired in New York in September, there was agreement that we must pursue the dual track with equal emphasis on both elements.

Malcolm Rifkind: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that the missing link in international efforts to achieve a diplomatic solution has, unfortunately, been the continuing reluctance of Arab states to be prepared to put public pressure on Iran, despite their oft-repeated-in private-serious reservations about Iran's nuclear ambitions? Does he agree that if the Arab states were to put public pressure on Iran, that would make it much more likely that Russia and China would co-operate in the Security Council, and much less likely that the United States or Israel would be tempted towards military intervention?

David Miliband: The right hon. and learned Gentleman makes an important point. It is fair to say that the thinking that he outlines explains the emphasis that we have put on the relationship between the E3 plus 3 and the Gulf Co-operation Council and other Arab states. A very important meeting took place in New York between the E3 plus 3 and the Arab states, led by the GCC. The sort of international unanimity that he refers to is very important. People often talk, rightly, about the fears in Israel of the Iranian nuclear programme, but he will know, as will the whole House, that those fears are matched throughout the Arab world, which recognises the dangers of a nuclear arms race in the middle east of all places.

Jeremy Corbyn: Will the Foreign Secretary acknowledge that Iran is still a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and that that should be welcomed as a sign of at least an ability to negotiate? Will he also recognise that now is the time to push for a nuclear-free middle east, which will of course require the disarmament of all nuclear states in the region, including Israel, as a way of bringing about long-term peace and security?

David Miliband: My hon. Friend will know that we have voted consistently for the aspiration of a nuclear-free middle east as part of a drive for nuclear disarmament around the world. However, I think that it is important to bear in mind that although it is right to acknowledge that Iran is a signatory to the NPT-and that is welcome-signing is only the first step. Obeying the treaty's injunctions and following its requirements should go with that signature. I hope that my hon. Friend will join me in sending a united message from this House that Iran has the hand of engagement outstretched towards it and that it will be treated as a normal country, not least in respect of civilian nuclear power, but that it must behave as a normal country would in its relations with the IAEA and the rest of the international community.

David Lidington: Like the Foreign Secretary, we hope that the talks in Vienna today under the aegis of the IAEA are successful. Does he agree that we ought to be concerned at the indications from the Iranian state broadcast and others in recent days that the offer to send material abroad for enrichment might not actually be delivered? Does he agree that it is important that the Group of Six make it very clear to Iran during these talks that any agreement has to involve Iran's existing stockpiles being taken abroad in return for nuclear fuel rods being supplied for scientific research, as well as immediate access for international inspectors to the facility at Qom?

David Miliband: There is quite a lot of detail in this. The Tehran research reactor proposal is an important proposal, which would involve the export for development of the low-enriched uranium that Iran has established. It is a very important proposal. The best thing for me to say is that it is good that Iran has said that in principle it is interested in that proposal, but it needs to turn that in-principle interest into an agreement that gets that low-enriched uranium out of the country to be properly fabricated and developed. If that happens, we can be absolutely clear-as Iran will be showing us not just by word but by deed-that it is interested only in peaceful civilian purposes for its nuclear programme. This is an important issue and I look forward to continuing to discuss it with the House.

Tibet

James Gray: What the Government's policy is on the status of Tibet; and if he will make a statement.

Ivan Lewis: We regard Tibet as part of China, albeit as an autonomous region. Our interest is in long-term stability, which can be achieved through respect for human rights and greater autonomy for Tibetans. We believe that substantive dialogue between the Chinese authorities and representatives of the Dalai Lama is the best way to achieve this.

James Gray: May I first call the House's attention to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests, where I record a recent visit to Tibet? During that visit I became increasingly convinced that the Government's change in stance on the status of Tibet was quite correct. Tibet needs to be an integral part of the greater People's Republic of China, albeit an entirely autonomous region. Does not the Minister agree with me about two things? First, that the change of stance should have been announced to the House in an oral statement rather than sneaked out in a written statement, which meant that no one could ask any questions about it. Secondly, I do not believe that much use was made of the leverage that could have been achieved by the UK Government's change in stance to press the Chinese Government on human rights issues, both in Tibet and across the greater People's Republic. Does he-

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Ivan Lewis: In terms of leverage, the fact that I was the first Minister to be invited by the Chinese Government to visit Tibet recently and that the all-party group, of which the hon. Gentleman is a member, was also allowed and encouraged to visit Tibet demonstrates that that shift in policy has enabled us to exercise significant influence over the Chinese Government. Let us be clear about the issues. It is extremely important-we have made this clear to China-that although we recognise the economic and social progress that is evident in Tibet, there are still major concerns about human rights. The Chinese Government should begin immediate negotiations with the representatives of the Dalai Lama and encourage visits from other politicians, and from journalists and opinion formers around the world, to demonstrate a greater level of openness. There must also be no equivocation on religious freedom, which is enshrined in the constitution of China in relation to Tibet.

Lindsay Hoyle: I welcome my hon. Friend's visit to Tibet to get an understanding of and a feel for what is happening there. Does he recognise that we will not solve the problem merely by having MPs and Ministers visiting the country? What needs to be dealt with is the intolerance shown towards the Tibetan people and the lack of freedom. What pressure can he put on the Chinese Government, as well as speaking to the Dalai Lama?

Ivan Lewis: My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point. Subsequent to my visit, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and I raised the issue of human rights violations with Dai Bigguo, the state councillor from China, and I have also had a lengthy meeting with the very able ambassador to China. Various issues need to be addressed: we must make sure that ethnic Tibetans benefit from the economic growth undoubtedly now taking place in Tibet, and that their language and culture are protected. In addition, we must ensure that ethnic Tibetans have access to fair justice and that there is genuine religious freedom, particularly in the monasteries.

Richard Younger-Ross: In 1904, Colonel Younghusband took British troops into Tibet. In 1947, those troops left and we recognised the Tibetan people's right to self-determination. Why do this Government not allow them that self-determination? Why are we not putting more pressure on the Chinese Government to recognise that right? At present, we are exerting less pressure in that regard than we did in 1947.

Ivan Lewis: When the hon. Gentleman asks why Britain does not allow the Tibetans freedom, he is clearly living in the past. The other important point is that the Dalai Lama himself does not demand independence for Tibet: what he demands is genuine autonomy and religious freedom, which has long been the policy of the rest of the international community. There is no doubt that, as a consequence of the policy change that we made last year, we now have greater leverage to influence China's policies in relation to Tibet.

NATO

Andrew Rosindell: How much his Department has spent on (a) hosting and (b) supporting the involvement of young British people in NATO activities in the last 12 months.

Ivan Lewis: In the last 12 months we have spent £22,000 in support of the Atlantic Council UK. This covers activities from 2008 to 2010. The council undertakes activities to raise NATO's profile and, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware, recently set up a youth chapter. From November, it will begin a schools programme to further raise awareness of NATO's activities.

Andrew Rosindell: Does the Minister agree that it is worth investing money in educating young people about NATO's historical role during the cold war, when it ensured that the free world remained free? It is a great organisation that has done so much for our freedom and liberty. Will he raise this matter with his counterparts in other countries to ensure that they are also investing in young people's education about NATO? Will he meet a British delegation from NATO's youth chapter-

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have said this many times, but I shall say it once more: Members should ask one question, not two-and certainly not three.

Ivan Lewis: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. First, I agree with the hon. Gentleman about NATO's central role in our national security, and in the relationship between the EU and the US. Of course we expect all NATO members to make their fair contribution when it comes to engaging young people and raising awareness among them. Finally, of course I would be willing to meet a youth delegation.

David Crausby: Does my hon. Friend agree that educating young people about NATO's future role is absolutely vital? What can he do to ensure that the future generation completely understands the threat that faces us, and what NATO can effectively do to defend us?

Ivan Lewis: I agree with my hon. Friend. It is very important that we do not fall for the myth that will be familiar to all hon. Members from their constituency responsibilities-that young people are somehow not interested in politics or international affairs. All hon. Members who visit local schools and colleges know that young people are incredibly interested in the issues that affect the world. The problem is that we have to demonstrate to them the relevance to their everyday lives of what goes on in this House and in conventional politics. Central to that is our future security and the role of NATO.

Freedom of Expression

Evan Harris: What steps he is taking to promote the protection of free expression in countries without a free press.

Chris Bryant: We work to safeguard the international framework that protects and promotes the right to freedom of expression and to support positive change on the ground. We raise individual cases where freedom of expression has been threatened, and we challenge countries to change practices that curtail the exercise of these rights.

Evan Harris: I draw the House's attention to the fact that I am a patron of Article 19, which campaigns for the rights of journalists abroad. Will the Minister join me in welcoming the fact that this week the Government have tabled amendments in the House of Lords to the Coroners and Justice Bill to get rid of the laws of sedition and criminal defamation in this country? Will he urge his colleagues to promote the fact that we have done this as a way of delivering similar freedoms to journalists in other countries?

Chris Bryant: It goes against the grain to congratulate a Liberal Democrat. None the less, I am more than happy to do so because I know the hon. Gentleman has played a very important role, along with Article 19, with which we try to work closely, to get rid of the obsolete offences of sedition and criminal libel, not least because other countries have sometimes pointed to those offences in the UK and said that that is a reason why they should be able to continue with laws that deliberately hinder the freedom of expression and the freedom of opinion, which we believe is an essential human right.

Mark Lazarowicz: Will my hon. Friend make representations to the Government of Morocco about free expression in that country? I was contacted at the weekend by a constituent whose brother is one of seven human rights activists who were detained last week by the Moroccan authorities. I understand that they have been threatened with life imprisonment or even the death penalty. Will my hon. Friend make efforts to intervene in this case and ensure that freedom of expression exists in that country as well?

Chris Bryant: I am more than happy to look into the individual case if my hon. Friend is able to pass on the information to me regarding the situation in Morocco. The right to express oneself, a free press and free media are essential. Around the world, one of the most important things that we have contributed to that is the BBC World Service.

Palestine

Andrew Gwynne: What discussions he has had with his Egyptian counterparts on progress towards a Palestinian reconciliation agreement.

David Miliband: I spoke to the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, last Friday. As I understand it, despite Fatah agreeing to Egypt's proposals, Hamas has not. The Foreign Minister told me that the original deadline and further repeated deadlines for reaching agreement among the Palestinian factions will not be met. I told the Foreign Minister that we continued to favour any reconciliation which supported peace negotiations and enhanced efforts to improve governance, security and the economy in the Palestinian territories.

Andrew Gwynne: I understand that difficult negotiations are continuing to try to bring about Palestinian unity, which will be crucial. Will my right hon. Friend give his assurance that that unity will be based on the renunciation of violence as the first step to the creation of a viable Palestinian state, as part of a two-state solution with Israel?

David Miliband: My hon. Friend takes a detailed interest in these issues and I know that his commitment to a two-state solution is profound. He is right that negotiations need to take place on the basis of the renunciation of violence. There is no path to a Palestinian state through violence, and it is precisely the sort of accord and determination to renounce violence that is recognised by the majority of the Palestinian people and needs to be recognised by all their leaders.

Malcolm Moss: Unlike the Egyptians, who turned up to vote in the UN Human Rights Council meeting last week on the Goldstone report on the recent conflict in Gaza, is it not deeply disappointing to find that our own representatives stayed away? This seems to have put us in the same voting camp as Angola, Kyrgyzstan and Madagascar, three of the world's worst dictatorships. What message was the Foreign Office trying to send to the community by staying away from that important vote last week?

David Miliband: The Government do not stay away from the question at all. As the hon. Gentleman should know, the Prime Minister was working closely with President Sarkozy of France, which I do not think even the Conservative party would describe as a dictatorship, on three key issues: first, an independent inquiry into the allegations at the heart of the Goldstone report; secondly, greater humanitarian aid into Gaza; and thirdly, a restart of the peace process. The vote was called in the middle of the discussions between the Prime Minister, President Sarkozy and Prime Minister Netanyahu. I think it is right that the United Kingdom takes every opportunity to drive forward on those three key issues, the aims of which have previously been supported by the Opposition.

Gerald Kaufman: Now that the United Nations Human Rights Commission has decided that Israel and Hamas have committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity, and with Israel continuing to flout President Obama's injunction to stop building in settlements, what action are we going to take to stop these blatant violations of international law?

David Miliband: It is absolutely right that we stick to the position that we have held since the publication of the Goldstone report-that, on the one hand, it did not do enough to recognise Israel's right to self-defence but, on the other, it did raise serious issues that democratic Governments should address through the sort of full and independent inquiry that is important. Democratic Governments are held to higher standards than terrorist organisations, and such Administrations need to live up to them. That is why it is in Israel's interest, never mind the international community's interest, that there be a proper independent inquiry. That is precisely what the Prime Minister was working for last Friday, and we will continue to work for it.

Mark Francois: When the UN Human Rights Council voted to endorse the Goldstone report on the conflict in Gaza, the text of the motion made no reference at all to Hamas, despite the fact that it was heavily criticised in the report itself. Given that the motion was so clearly unbalanced, therefore, does the Secretary of State agree that the Government should have voted against it, as the United States did, rather than not even registering a formal abstention but simply not voting at all? We interrupt meetings here all the time to vote. Why could they not have done that?

David Miliband: For the record, I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman has not understood what actually happened at the launch of the Goldstone report. The resolution setting up the report was, indeed, deeply unbalanced, and it did not refer to Hamas. That is why we welcomed the fact that Judge Goldstone immediately said that his inquiry would be into Hamas's alleged violations of international law, as well as Israel's, and he was right to do so. The hon. Gentleman will know that, frankly, asking Hamas to set up an independent inquiry is whistling in the wind, but it is right none the less that we say to a democratic Government such as Israel, whom we do respect, that their interests are best served by the sort of independent, full and transparent inquiry that has distinguished Israeli public life in the past.

China

Joan Walley: What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of EU co-operation with China.

Chris Bryant: There is scope for much more productive EU-China co-operation on the whole range of global economic and security issues. We believe that entry into force of the Lisbon treaty, with its new external structures, is the ideal opportunity to put that relationship on a much more productive course.

Joan Walley: Will my hon. Friend tell me how existing co-operation and the European Union's current stance can be used to ensure that we get a fair and effective Copenhagen climate change treaty that involves China?

Chris Bryant: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's comments. She is absolutely right: if we are to get a proper agreement in Copenhagen, we must ensure that the Chinese contribution to that discussion is very much in line with the EU. That is why we very much welcome the further meeting that will take place in Nanjing in a few weeks' time, in November, just before the Copenhagen summit. We support summit plans for a high-profile EU-China partnership on climate change and, indeed, for the near-zero emissions coal initiative. It is absolutely vital that the EU and China work together, and it is much easier for us to achieve that if we co-operate with other countries in Europe, rather than distance ourselves from the mainstream.

David Heathcoat-Amory: Is the Minister aware of China's treatment of refugees from North Korea, and of China's refusal to admit an investigation or access by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees? Does that not rule out any further co-operation so long as China, as a member of the UN Security Council, refuses to abide by human rights obligations that it has signed up to?

Chris Bryant: Of course, there are always human rights issues that we will want to take up with the Chinese authorities, and we do so very regularly. I think that that is one of the issues that we have specifically taken up, but that does not mean that we do not continue to engage with China. Indeed, I would argue that in recent years, we, as the European Union, have not been able to engage as effectively with China as we might, but that does not preclude us from raising in the most robust of terms human rights issues in every regard, whether in relation to Falun Gong, the issue that the right hon. Gentleman just raised or, for that matter, the death penalty.

Afghanistan

Roberta Blackman-Woods: What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the co-ordination of policy with other EU member states on developments in Afghanistan affecting UK national security.

David Miliband: I regularly discuss developments affecting UK national security with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department, including the outcome of his recent and important visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan. We have pushed consistently with European Union partners for greater and more coherent EU action in both countries, including the adoption of a new strategy to strengthen EU action in Afghanistan and Pakistan and a second EU-Pakistan summit in the first half of 2010.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: I thank my right hon. Friend for that response. Will he confirm that he will be working closely with his European partners over the next few weeks to ensure that the next round of voting in the Afghan presidential elections is both free and fair, so that those wishing to rebuild Afghanistan and make it more secure have the benefit of working with a credible Government there?

David Miliband: My hon. Friend raises a very important point that I will touch on in the introduction to topical questions. There are important developments in Afghanistan today that will affect all of us. The commitment to a second round on behalf of both candidates is important, but equally important are the statesmanlike statements made today, which hold out important prospects for the future credibility of an Afghan Government-that must be at the heart of any hon. Member's concern about the future of that country. The Afghan people need a credible Government and so does the international community as a partner for all our efforts.

John Baron: Further to the previous question, the Foreign Secretary will be fully aware that soldiers can buy one time and space, but what we need in Afghanistan is a political solution. Given that the electoral complaints commission said that about a third of President Karzai's votes in the presidential elections were fraudulent, will the Foreign Secretary assure the House that any poll run-off will be legitimate and fair and have the confidence of the Afghan people?

David Miliband: The whole House should recognise that the work of the electoral complaints commission has been of the highest order, the highest integrity, and, as we can now see, the highest level of forcefulness. There has been no willingness on its part to be pushed off the central principles to which it has adhered. There has clearly been attempted fraud on a large scale. The vital thing is that all the arrangements, security as well as administrative, are followed through for the second round, or in preparation for the second round, not least to give proper credit and recognition to those brave Afghans who were determined to vote despite the intimidation and threats that they faced.

Tony Lloyd: Will my right hon. Friend once again restate the fact that because the conflict in Afghanistan is so inextricably linked with the military activity in Pakistan, it is absolutely vital for Britain's own security that we maintain our commitment to seeing a peace process develop, which means a continuation of our military presence in Afghanistan?

David Miliband: Yes, but to pick up my hon. Friend's point and that of the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron), ultimately there must be a political settlement in Afghanistan: a political settlement for the people of that country; a political offer to the insurgency to live within the constitution and to come in and share political power or face the military consequences; and a political settlement with Afghanistan's neighbours, because their tendency to try to see Afghanistan, or parts of it, as a client state rather than a neutral state is completely undermining that country's ability to run its own affairs.

William Hague: Perhaps anticipating what the Foreign Secretary intends to say in topical questions, may I, on behalf of the Opposition, join in the welcome for the announcement by President Karzai that he accepts the need for a second round, which in the absence of a national unity Government in Afghanistan must be the best way forward? Building on earlier questions, will the Foreign Secretary expand on what the Government can do and what representations they will make to try to ensure that these elections are run on a far better basis than those on 20 August, with an increase in the number of Afghan and international election observers and a reform of the electoral procedures that were abused last time? Will he assure the House that action can be taken on those matters?

David Miliband: It is important to say that real efforts will be made to live up to the standards that the right hon. Gentleman has tried to sketch out. Frankly, it would be glib and slightly other-worldly for me to stand here and give a blanket yes to his questions, which, although serious, go the heart of very deep security problems that face Afghanistan. However, it is the case that in the first Afghan-led elections significant numbers of people voted despite huge attempts at intimidation. It is also the case that the establishment of the electoral complaints commission held true to the principle that fraudulent votes would not be counted, with consequences that were probably not expected by many people in terms of the overall result. The final score, if it comes in at about 48 per cent. to 31 per cent., represents a degree of competition in the electoral process that is significant and speaks to the work that will be critical in the next few weeks, which is the election of a credible Afghan Government who can be a legitimate expression of the will of the Afghan people, with a programme representing a significant majority of opinion. That is the hope for all of us.

William Hague: On another matter regarding Afghanistan, the Prime Minister announced last week 500 additional troops for Afghanistan but set out burden sharing across the coalition as one of the conditions for that. Can the Foreign Secretary enlighten us further about that condition? If the United States is the only substantial extra contributor alongside the United Kingdom, will he consider that condition to have been fulfilled?

David Miliband: The right hon. Gentleman will know that one of the commitments that President Obama has made is that not just that the first McChrystal report but that the second should be discussed deeply to ensure that there is full alliance engagement with the request in question. We will engage fully with the process, in respect of not just the American uplift and the discussions about it but the commitments of other countries on, first, the number of troops, secondly, on what those troops do and where they do it and, thirdly, on the civil engagement that President Obama and the Prime Minister have stressed at every stage is a critical part of the effort. We will consider that in the round and then come to our conclusions.

Sri Lanka

Simon Hughes: What recent discussions he has had with Sri Lankan Government Ministers on the situation of Tamil communities in the north and east of that country.

David Evennett: What his most recent assessment is of the political situation in Sri Lanka; and if he will make a statement.

David Miliband: I met Foreign Minister Bogollagama on 25 September and urged him to ensure that the Government of Sri Lanka return all 250,000 internally displaced persons to their homes as quickly as possible. The imminent monsoon makes that more urgent, alongside the need for improved facilities for, and access to, camps. I pressed for progress on the protection of minority communities and on reconciliation, which will be vital if the end of the conflict is to be translated into a meaningful and lasting peace.
	I also made clear my concerns about the protection of human rights. The European Commission registered those concerns yesterday in its pre-report on GSP plus-general system of preferences-trade preferences. I assure the House that our position on GSP plus is clear: Sri Lanka must respect its international human rights obligations if it is to continue to benefit from GSP plus.

Simon Hughes: I am grateful for the Foreign Secretary's answer and for the Government's efforts on this subject. Given the importance that he has placed on human rights being upheld by the Government of Sri Lanka, can he assure the House that he will make it clear up to and during the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference that it would be unacceptable for the next conference to be held in Sri Lanka?

David Miliband: We will continue to use all avenues to make clear the importance of human rights in Sri Lanka and every other part of the Commonwealth.

David Evennett: We are all extremely concerned about the situation in Sri Lanka, and obviously a political solution is vital for all the people of that country. However, Sri Lanka is to start its process of political reform and reconciliation only after the 2010 election, so the Government there say. If minority communities are not to be disfranchised, the process must begin before the election. What more can the Government do to encourage that?

David Miliband: I spoke to the Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka on the day the civil war ended and said that this was the best opportunity for Sri Lanka to build an inclusive political settlement. There is no need to wait-the time is now. Outreach to the minority communities now, in advance of the election, will be critical to shaping how they engage with a future Sri Lankan Government.

Barry Gardiner: The Foreign Secretary will know that it has been impossible for independent journalists to gain access to the detention camps. Will he press the Sri Lankan Government to ensure that there is free and unfettered access, so that the reports that we are hearing of wilful gang rapes by the Sri Lankan army of women abducted from those camps, and of the taking out of young men, can be brought to an end once and for all?

David Miliband: Yes, access to the camps, not just for journalists but for human rights organisations, is a fundamental part of the building of a peaceful and inclusive Sri Lankan political system.

Edward Davey: Now that the EU has concluded that Sri Lanka is in breach of its human rights obligations under its trade agreement with the EU, will the Foreign Secretary confirm that the UK will push for and support the suspension of the GSP plus trade benefits that Sri Lanka currently enjoys, and argue for that across the EU?

David Miliband: I must have disappointed the hon. Gentleman terribly when I answered that question in my original answer. I am sorry that he was not able to change his question after that.
	I repeat that the European Commission has produced what is called a pre-report on GSP plus, and that our position is absolutely clear: Sri Lanka must respect its international human rights obligations to continue to benefit from GSP plus. The hon. Gentleman will know that when the Commission finally publishes its report, as opposed to its pre-report, there will be a maximum of two months before a final decision is taken. We will play a full part in ensuring respect for that principle.

Edward Davey: With respect to the Foreign Secretary, he did not actually answer my question in his first remarks, and he failed to do so in that response. Are the UK Government going to push for the GSP plus trade benefits to be suspended in relation to Sri Lanka-yes or no?

David Miliband: I think, "Oh yes he did" is the answer that came both from the Opposition and some of the people sitting next to the hon. Gentleman. I think it is important that he recognises that on this issue, he can safely agree with what the Government are saying. A pre-report has been published. Our position on the human rights aspect is that there are 27 international agreements that countries wishing to benefit from GSP plus need to adhere to, including on critical issues to do with children's rights, torture and so on. They must be adhered to for GSP plus to continue.

Keith Simpson: In the last few weeks of the conflict in Sri Lanka, Members on both sides of the House were horrified at the civilian casualties, which were the result both of action by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam-use of children and the use of women as cover-and of indiscriminate fire by Sri Lankan Government forces. Have the Government been able to get any answer from the Sri Lankan Government on whether they intend to investigate allegations made against their forces? What pressure is the international community applying regarding war crimes?

David Miliband: I hope the hon. Gentleman saw the statement by Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, and President Rajapaksa following their meeting in Colombo-if he did not, I will certainly send it to him. The statement made clear the need for an accountability mechanism. It is certainly our determination in meetings with the UN Secretary-General and in meetings with the Sri Lankan Government to ensure that it is followed up. The hon. Gentleman referred to the international community. There is no better basis for the follow-up of allegations of war crimes than the agreement that the Sri Lankan President had with the UN Secretary-General.

Arab Peace Initiative

Anne McGuire: What recent discussions his Department has had with the Palestinian Authority on the Arab peace initiative; and if he will make a statement.

Ivan Lewis: I visited the Palestinian territories in August, and met Ministers and the President's chief of staff. The Foreign Secretary spoke to the Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, most recently on 12 October. All our discussions include the need for urgent progress towards a comprehensive peace in the middle east, with a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians underpinned by a broader peace between Israel and the entire Arab world.

Anne McGuire: I thank my hon. Friend for that response. He may be aware that on 9 October, in Israel's  Ha'aretz newspaper, King Abdullah of Jordan said:
	"We have no alternative but to pursue a negotiated settlement that will meet Israel's security needs and ensure it has normal relations in the region, and fulfils the Palestinians' right to freedom and statehood."
	Given that the Israeli Government have not yet formulated a response to the Arab peace initiative, what more can Britain do to encourage them to support that initiative, which I think, frankly, gives an unprecedented opportunity for 57 nations to have normal relations with Israel in the context of a wider settlement?

Ivan Lewis: What can I say, Mr. Speaker? My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I believe genuinely that this is the last best chance for peace in the middle east for a generation. We should give our full support to the initiative led by President Obama, particularly with the appointment of Senator Mitchell. This is now the time in the middle east for responsible and visionary leadership. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State laid out recently, the basis of the agreement is clear: a secure Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state; resolving the issues of final borders, based on '67 including issues of settlements and Jerusalem; justice for Palestinian refugees; and not simply recognition of Israel by the Arab world, but normalisation in relations towards Israel by the Arab world.

Crispin Blunt: Will the Minister assure the House that the Foreign Office will encourage all Arab Governments of the continuing relevance and importance of the Arab peace initiative, and to back it not only with hard diplomacy, but with soft diplomacy aimed at the Israeli population?

Ivan Lewis: I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. It is important not only that we see justice for the Palestinians in terms of the Palestinian state, but that we give assurances to the Israeli people that their security will be protected should a two-state agreement be reached. That is why it is so important that the Arab world sends very clear and strong messages to terrorist organisations such as Hamas and Hezbollah that they are obstacles to peace, and that they are not furthering the cause of a Palestinian state.

Turkey and Armenia

Bob Laxton: What assessment he has made of the implications for Government policy in the region of the conclusion of protocols on (a) development of relations and (b) establishment of diplomatic relations between Turkey and Armenia.

Chris Bryant: The Government welcome the signing of protocols between Armenia and Turkey. That is important not only for those countries, but for peace in the wider region.

Bob Laxton: What further steps can the Government take to encourage both Turkey and Armenia to ratify and implement these protocols, because the benefits will be immense for the region? We need to ensure that momentum in this process is maintained.

Chris Bryant: My hon. Friend is right: we need to ensure that ratification is proceeded with by the Parliaments, and two months after that it will be possible to open the border. That is such a significant change from the position that we were in only a few years ago that all Members will wholeheartedly welcome it. We remain committed to Turkey eventually being able to accede to the European Union, but it is impossible to have any leverage arguing that with German and French colleagues unless one sits down in the European Parliament with them, not with people who still refuse to apologise for the Latvian SS.

Refugee Camps (Chad)

David Taylor: What reports he has received on the security of female refugees from Darfur living in refugee camps in eastern Chad; and if he will make a statement.

Ivan Lewis: We are understandably concerned by reports from the United Nations and non-governmental organisations highlighting the dangers that Darfuri women face in and around refugee camps in eastern Chad.

David Taylor: Amnesty's report "No Place for Us Here" documents the worsening plight of the refugees who have fled since 2003 to eastern Chad where rape and other attacks are being committed against many women and girls with egregious impunity inside and outside the camps. Will my hon. Friend urgently raise this fundamental failure to protect innocent victims of the Darfur crisis with the Chadian ambassador and at United Nations level, because this shocking criminal violence must be stopped and the perpetrators indicted?

Ivan Lewis: My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has not only agreed to be my assistant on this occasion, but has agreed to accede to my hon. Friend's request to write to the UN about this incredibly important issue and raise the concerns of the British Government.

Anne Milton: How do the Government intend to integrate UN resolution 1888 on women, peace and security into the existing framework of the national action plan on resolution 1325?

Ivan Lewis: That is entirely consistent with the policies that the Government have promoted on this issue over a very long time, so the UK will be providing leadership on this.

Topical Questions

Ian McCartney: If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

David Miliband: This afternoon, President Karzai has announced that in the light of the findings of the electoral complaints commission, he will embrace a second round run-off of the presidential elections in Afghanistan. We welcome that. Both he and Dr. Abdullah have been statesmanlike in accepting the prolonged electoral process and have secured support from across the country. Both have a major responsibility to ensure that the next stages are a credit to Afghanistan. The independent election commission is expected to make an announcement this afternoon on the details of the first round result, once it has collated the orders of the electoral complaints commission to exclude flawed ballots and include some quarantined ballots. The Afghan people and candidates have shown patience and resilience throughout this process and the UK will continue to support them as they bring it to a conclusion.
	I also wish to place on record the thanks of the whole House not just to the UN Secretary-General's special representative, Kai Eide, for the unstinting work that he has done on this election, but to Senator John Kerry for his work over the past few days. I spoke to him on Saturday and Sunday, and he has made a signal contribution to the resolution of the process.

Ian McCartney: I agree with everything that my right hon. Friend has said. I wish him and our colleagues well in reaching a successful conclusion with a run-off.
	Does my right hon. Friend have any comment to make about the complaint by the chief rabbi of Poland about the recent election of Michal Kaminski to the leadership of the Conservative group, given his neo-Nazi links? Does my right hon. Friend think that that was an appropriate election, supported as it was by the leaders of the Opposition in this country?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind right hon. and hon. Members that in topical questions both the question and the answer must be brief. I do not want to cut people off, but I will if it is necessary to make progress.

David Miliband: The future of this country depends on wholehearted engagement in the European Union, making Britain's case and ensuring that we are part of a mainstream majority. This Government are proud to be alongside 27 Governments and 26 opposition parties in saying that now is the time to put the Lisbon treaty into practice and to ensure that it benefits all the citizens of Europe. It is a great pity that the Conservative party is stuck in the past.

William Hague: On that, it is a great pity that the Labour party broke an election promise that it made to the people of this country at the last election. However, I am sure that the Foreign Secretary will join me in welcoming today's visit to Sarajevo by Carl Bildt and the US deputy Secretary of State. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, given the situation in Bosnia and what has happened in that country over the past 15 to 20 years, it would be premature to close the Office of the High Representative or to withdraw the EUFOR presence, and that the time might be coming when the carrot of EU accession for Bosnia and Herzegovina has to be accompanied by the stick of sanctions on those who would undermine its political progress?

David Miliband: The House should know that the real pity is that three times the right hon. Gentleman has refused to debate Europe with me on the BBC and Channel 4, because he knows that his arguments are completely threadbare. We stand ready to take questions about Europe-of which there are none-and to hold debates about Europe, which he refuses to have.
	In respect of Bosnia, I spoke to Minister Bildt on Sunday about this important issue, and I agree that today's meeting is important. The European orientation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a very important part of the package being worked on. However, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will also agree-I think that this is his position-that we must ensure proper conditionality in any switch from the OHR to the EU special representative.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am grateful to the Secretary of State, but I must say to Ministers that the abridged version, rather than the "War and Peace" version, will suffice. I call Judy Mallaber.

Judy Mallaber: Last week, I visited Bangladesh, which will be critically affected by climate change. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if we weaken our political affiliations in Europe and with other countries by fringe activities such as joining fringe groups, we will be in a weaker position when trying to deal with issues such as getting agreements on climate change and other issues critical to UK interests?

Chris Bryant: My hon. Friend- [Interruption.] It is nice to be welcomed.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I ask the Minister to hold his horses for a moment. Mr. Simpson, you are very senior and experienced Member of this House. Chuntering away and bellowing from a sedentary position is not in order. You can behave so much better when you try.

Chris Bryant: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to be able to deliver on some key issues for Britain, one of which is an agreement in Copenhagen later this year. It is impossible for us to do that without a stronger EU and our playing a stronger role within the EU. There are no fringe benefits to being on the fringe.

Simon Hughes: From the Liberal Democrat Benches, may I encourage Ministers to be as positive as that answer about the post-Lisbon future? I ask that, in the interests of a Copenhagen deal that works and an economic future for Europe that delivers jobs, we work positively with all the other 26 countries and do not work on the margins, which will put us on the margins for the decades ahead.

David Miliband: I fear that I might have done a disservice to the Liberal Democrats and their allies around Europe. All 27 Governments around Europe, 26 opposition parties and all the Liberal parties in Europe are saying that now is time to put the constitutional arguments, and now the reform treaty arguments, behind us and to work for a stronger Europe. It is a great pity that only one party-this Conservative party-in the whole of Europe wants to fight the battles of the past. From now until election day, it will have to answer whether it is ready to live with the Lisbon treaty or determined to fight it on its own.

David Anderson: It is now four years since the Iraqi Government took control of the assets of the Iraqi trade union movement. In the past week, they have seized even more control of the levers of power in the unions. Will the Secretary of State meet me and Iraqi trade unions to see whether we can find a way forward to give these people real support in a situation that should not be happening?

Ivan Lewis: We believe in not only the rights of trade unions in this country, but in the rights of trade unions in Iraq. At the heart of the Iraqi constitution is the right to organise in a free trade union, and I would certainly enter into discussions with my hon. Friend about how we make this a reality. When I visit Iraq at some stage over the next few months, I shall raise the point directly with the Iraqi Government.

Ann Winterton: What impact does Pakistan's deep involvement in the Afghanistan conflict have on the prospect for a resolution of the long-running India-Pakistan dispute over the future of Kashmir?

David Miliband: The key to re-establishing the composite dialogue, which was so important in trying to establish better relations between India and Pakistan, is action in Pakistan on those associated with the Mumbai bombings. There is a real hunger in the Indian Government and among the Indian population to see real action from their Pakistani neighbours on that critical issue. However, the foundation of confidence needs to be proper prosecution and, if found guilty, sentencing of those who were associated-or allegedly associated-with the Mumbai murders.

Marsha Singh: May I inform my right hon. Friend that many of my constituents are extremely concerned about the events taking place in Pakistan right now? This is a struggle that the Pakistani Government must win. What support are the Government offering Pakistan, both through what its troops are doing and on internally displaced people?

David Miliband: I am glad that my hon. Friend, who follows these issues carefully, gives me the chance to reflect with the House on the vital work being done in Pakistan. The Pakistani Government have long been urged to recognise that the multiple insurgencies that they face are a threat not just to them, but to overall regional peace and security. The armed efforts now being taken up by the Pakistani army in six of the districts in South Waziristan threaten a large number of refugees, but also offer the prospect that, for the first time, there will be a proper Pakistani Government security presence in those districts. It is of the utmost importance that we continue not only to offer political and humanitarian support, which is an essential part of our work with the internally displaced persons who will inevitably come with the conflict, but to engage with all Pakistani opinion on this vital issue.

Norman Baker: The Government are right to expend diplomatic efforts in trying to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear capability, but does the Foreign Secretary understand and accept that one of the issues that the Iranians rightly raise is the Israeli nuclear capability? What is his policy on that and will he encourage Israel to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty?

David Miliband: Yes, and I answered exactly the same question when my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) asked it at the beginning of questions today.

Phyllis Starkey: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that the appropriate response of the Israeli Government to the Arab peace offer would have been an unequivocal commitment to an immediate settlement freeze, as all the settlements are illegal under international law. What can be done to ensure that they do this now?

Ivan Lewis: I agree with my hon. Friend. President Obama has made it clear that the trigger for comprehensive negotiations that will lead to a two-state solution are, first, the freezing of illegal Israeli settlements, which has long been the British position, and, secondly, a positive gesture towards the state of Israel from the Arab world. We believe that there is no time to waste in responding positively to President Obama's initiative.

Peter Bone: Last year we provided £339 million in overseas development assistance to India. We even provided £97 million to China, but Afghanistan on the other hand received only £178 million. The brave men and women of our armed forces are fighting to defeat the Taliban. Should we not be providing more aid to win the hearts and minds of the civilian population?

David Miliband: We are providing more aid: Afghanistan is going to become the second largest recipient of British aid this year. It is also worth pointing out that, to put it mildly, Afghanistan is a much smaller country than China or India. By definition, the aid that we give to a country of 20 million people will be much less than our aid to some other countries. However, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that Afghanistan will become the second largest aid recipient this year.

David Cairns: One small cause for optimism in the middle east is the security improvements on the west bank, which have been brought about by the Palestinian Authority finally getting a grip on security there and the Israelis responding by opening road blocks. Will the Foreign Secretary continue to provide full support and backing to General Dayton and his largely British team, who have done so much to bring about that improved state of affairs?

David Miliband: Yes, I have worked closely with General Dayton, who has done an important job, with support from his British No. 2. The commitment to improving Palestinian security was to be found in phase one of the road map, and the Israeli commitment was meant to be to freeze the settlements alongside that. The fact that the Palestinian Authority are determined to follow through on their commitment to improving Palestinian security is right, and it is also reaping dividends in the form of the economic benefits that can be seen by anyone who goes to Ramallah or anywhere else in the west bank.

Elfyn Llwyd: I am mindful of the earlier exchanges about Sri Lanka and the work being done by the Government. Is it not therefore high time that we had a cast-iron programme from the Sri Lankan Government for the disbanding of those awful camps and the repatriation of the Tamil people?

David Miliband: Yes.

Gordon Banks: Will my right hon. Friend tell me whether he thinks that the pressures on freedom of expression elsewhere in the world have an impact on our own freedoms of expression and our safety in the UK?

Chris Bryant: Freedom of expression, wherever it may be in the world, is a vital subject that we try to raise in many countries. Part of our diplomatic effort in Colombia, Russia, China and many parts of Africa involves trying to ensure that the freedoms that we rejoice in here in this country can be shared by people in other parts of the world.

Nicholas Winterton: Zimbabwe has fallen off the Foreign Office radar, yet the tragedy and the crisis there continue. What initiatives are the Government taking to try to bring some form of African democracy to that wonderful country?

David Miliband: I am glad to have the opportunity to assure the hon. Gentleman that Zimbabwe certainly has not fallen off our agenda. There is intensive work going on, not least through our contacts with the new South African Government, to ensure that the crisis that he has rightly described is not forgotten. He will also be aware of our continuing humanitarian work. The vital need, however, is to support the global political agreement and the transition that it promises to a proper election that will recognise the real winner of that election. He will have seen that members of a European Union delegation went to Harare and delivered a simple message without fear or favour to President Mugabe and Prime Minister Tsvangirai. The message was that they would support the Zimbabwean people in delivering and administering that global political agreement, but that it must lead to an effective election to resolve the country's future.

Denis MacShane: Does my right hon. Friend agree that any massacre, big or small, by whomever, of Jews during world war two was a crime against humanity? To whitewash such a massacre and to try to make it relative is intolerable, unacceptable politics, and those who associate with those politicians shame this House and our nation.

David Miliband: My right hon. Friend has done fantastic work with colleagues across every party on anti-Semitism and the need to combat it. There is no room for hair-splitting when it comes to the massacre of 300 or 400 people in a Polish village in 1941, and I would have thought that every single Member of this House would be able to condemn that atrocity without any hesitation.

Desmond Swayne: In his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss), the Foreign Secretary implied that our grand abstention was part of a cunning plan involving President Sarkozy. What was the plan?

David Miliband: The plan was very simple, and I would not describe it as cunning. I would describe it as principled and clear. It is to ensure that there is an independent inquiry into the allegations at the heart of the Goldstone report, that humanitarian aid gets into Gaza and that there is a restart of peace talks on the basis of President Obama's UN General Assembly speech. That is something that the hon. Gentleman should be supporting, not mocking.

Transfer of Prisoners

Dominic Grieve: (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor if he will make a statement on the report from the chief inspector of prisons documenting the concerted movement of prisoners between Wandsworth and Pentonville prisons in order to avoid inspection.

Jack Straw: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for this question. Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons, Dame Anne Owers, has today published two inspection reports concerning Her Majesty's prisons at Pentonville and Wandsworth. The inspections took place in May and June this year. The background to the chief inspector's findings is contained in a written ministerial statement that I made to the House this morning. An investigation report was received by the senior management of the National Offender Management Service on 2 October. The report found that 11 prisoners had been subject to temporary transfers between Wandsworth and Pentonville, and that those transfers had been arranged in a deliberate attempt to undermine the inspection process of Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons. Several of these prisoners were known to be vulnerable, and two harmed themselves during this process.
	Following the receipt of the investigation reports, disciplinary charges under the Prison Service code of conduct were laid on 13 October against a number of individuals. Proceedings are currently under way. The House will understand that such disciplinary proceedings are not a matter in which Ministers can or should be involved.
	The prisons and probation ombudsman and Her Majesty's coroner are conducting separate investigations into the self-inflicted death of another prisoner transferred to Pentonville, following a court appearance, in the week before the Wandsworth inspection. The prisoner was held at Pentonville during the inspection, before being returned to Wandsworth. During the course of the investigations, information emerged to suggest that a third prison, HMP Brixton, temporarily transferred prisoners out during its inspection. A further investigation is now being completed and we are awaiting a formal report.
	There are obviously questions as to whether these practices are more widespread across the prison estate. I have therefore asked Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons to work with the Ministry of Justice's director of analytical services to investigate whether the temporary transfer of prisoners prior to inspections has occurred in other prisons.
	The transfer of prisoners like this, in a deliberate attempt to undermine the inspectorate process of HM's chief inspector of prisons, was a disgraceful matter in both its intent and its execution. The individuals involved neglected one of their primary duties-to treat those in custody with decency and respect-and made serious errors of judgment, which are neither justifiable nor excusable. But for these transfers, these two prisons were
	"en route to get good inspection reports",
	as Dame Anne Owers, the chief inspector, commented this morning. She added that
	"inspection has nothing to do with performance targets".
	Independent inspections and Prison Service performance standards, along with substantial investment, have led to a transformation in the nature of prison regimes over the past 12 years. Her Majesty's chief inspector has acknowledged that prisons today are more decent, more constructive and considerably more secure, which is yet another reason why these incidents are all the more inexcusable and regrettable. I will, of course, keep the House informed of further developments.

Dominic Grieve: The report by the chief inspector of prisons and the answer just given to my question today show that prisoners have been transferred from Wandsworth and Pentonville prisons with the collusion of senior staff and the deliberate intention of avoiding independent inspection without any regard for those prisoners' well-being. Dame Anne Owers concludes that this was
	"irresponsible, pointless and potentially dangerous".
	She is clearly right, and I am delighted that the Secretary of State agrees.
	Those responsible face a disciplinary process. That, too, is right. We will await the outcome and I certainly do not wish to prejudice such proceedings today. However, if the Prison Service takes responsibility for its mistakes, will the Justice Secretary take responsibility for the failings in the prison system that are bringing this state of affairs about? The truth is that this type of incident, while totally inexcusable, is an almost inevitable result of this Government's serial mismanagement of our prisons.
	Prison overcrowding is at record levels. Can the Justice Secretary confirm that in May, at the time of the inspections, Wandsworth prison was holding 50 per cent. more prisoners than its certified capacity-just seven away from its absolute emergency breaking point? Is it fair to limit responsibility to prison staff when the Government have recklessly ignored all the warnings over a period of six years that predicted this crisis of capacity in our prisons today, which was bound to impact on how individual prisoners are managed?
	The Justice Secretary seems to believe that targets can make up for this most basic failure to provide enough places for all the prisoners. Both Wandsworth and Pentonville prisons are subject to 44 different top-down targets, including one for the amount of water drunk and another for energy efficiency. In the first quarter of this year, as the Secretary of State said, Wandsworth prison was evaluated as "good", yet at the same time we have these serious failings.
	Does the Justice Secretary accept that we are witnessing the stark reality of the warping effect in the real world of excessive Whitehall targets set by this Government? Does he accept that prison officers would not go to such extraordinary lengths to dupe inspectors if the Government lived up to their responsibilities, and created the conditions in which they can work properly?
	Then there are the specific findings of the chief inspector: the deliberate moving of vulnerable prisoners prone to self-harm which definitely led some of them to injure themselves, and the fact that two of the five prisoners from Wandsworth tried to kill themselves when told that they would be moved. One tied a ligature around his own neck and cut himself. He was forced from his cell in his underwear.
	Does the Justice Secretary recognise that those appalling and utterly avoidable examples of mistreatment are the consequences of a prison estate that is bursting at the seams? Will he undertake to come to the House and make an oral statement once we have the ombudsman's findings on the tragic suicide of Christopher Wardally? Will he take some responsibility?
	These are not isolated examples. As a result of the conditions in our prisons, incidents of self-harm rose by 10 per cent. last year. What hope can we have of reducing reoffending rates to protect the public when increasing numbers of prisoners are so desperate that they will harm themselves?  [Interruption.] Did the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) wish to intervene?

Dennis Skinner: No. It was so boring that I did not bother.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Dominic Grieve: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman takes this matter so seriously, Mr. Speaker.
	Does the Justice Secretary accept that the Government's usual tactic of trying to characterise the transfers and the problems as being isolated incidents simply does not wash from what we know happened at Brixton? Will he give the House an undertaking to publish, in a written statement, a list of all prisoner transfers made within a week before inspections were due in all prisons in the last six months? That will at least give us some measure of transparency, given that there must be fears that this may in fact be a widespread practice. Although the Secretary of State has known about the matter for some time-since July-Wandsworth remains as crowded as it was back in May.
	This is a Government who are on their last legs. They are exhausted, and they are bereft of solutions to problems that are entirely of their own making.

Jack Straw: Let me respond to the series of questions asked by the hon. and learned Gentleman.
	I have always taken responsibility for the prison system, and any other matter falling within my wide responsibilities as a Minister, in every Department in which I have been involved. However, there is no evidence so far-none whatsoever-that these totally unacceptable and inexcusable transfers have anything to do with the setting and maintenance of targets, or with overcrowding in prisons.
	I accept, and volunteered in my statement-indeed, it was I who proposed it in the first place-that, given the evidence here, and the evidence that we have that something may have happened in Brixton, and we know no more than that, there are bound to be questions about whether the practice was widespread. That is why I have set up an independent investigation in which the chief inspector of prisons' staff will be involved alongside my staff, who, I may say, are separate from the staff of the National Offender Management Service. However, both the director general of the Prison Service-who is as appalled about this as anyone-and the chief inspector of prisons themselves said today words to the effect that they doubt that the practice is widespread, and so far there is no evidence that it is. I promise the House, of course, that any evidence that emerges from the analysis that we are conducting will be made available to the House, and that, if there is any evidence, it will be followed up rigorously.
	As for the number of prisoners in Wandsworth prison on the day of their inspections, two measures are applied, certified normal accommodation and operational capacity. No local prison in the country has ever been at its certified normal accommodation level. All work, and have under successive Governments, to their operational capacity. Wandsworth was just under it, and Pentonville was 84 under it.
	On the hyperbole about targets, after years of absolute chaos in the prisons under the previous Administration-for example, escapes were running at more per week than happened last in a single year-it was they who established targets: eight key performance indicators and eight targets. There are now 13 targets for prisons, including on such matters as escapes, drugs, reoffending, staff sickness and ethnic minority staff. I would like the hon. and learned Gentleman to tell us which of them he suggests we should not meet.
	As for overcrowding-

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I gently say to the Secretary of State that if he could offer us a brief distillation of his views, that would be appreciated?

Jack Straw: rose-

Mr. Speaker: Order. So far, the exchanges between the Front Benches have simply taken too long. If that happens again, I will cut them off, as we must get Back Benchers in.

Jack Straw: As for the timing, I was informed of this on 30 July. I issued a public statement immediately, and I also wrote to the hon. and learned Gentleman on 2 September.

David Howarth: What appears to have happened is, indeed, disgraceful, and it is particularly disturbing that the members of staff involved were of such high rank and of such previous high reputation. However, does the Secretary of State not feel some twinge of guilt about what happened? He says there is no connection between this and overcrowding, but the connection is as follows: because of overcrowding, every day there are massive transfers from prison to prison within the prison system, and presumably that is where the idea arose of hiding these problems behind transfers. The second thing he should feel some responsibility for is the fact that the prisons are full of inmates who suffer from mental illnesses-serious mental illnesses in many cases. There is a far higher proportion of people with mental illnesses among the prisoner population than among the population at large. We have been given to believe that some of the inmates concerned in this case were suffering from mental illness. Will the Secretary of State confirm that?
	Does the Secretary of State accept that the overcrowding of the prisons and the fact that they are full of mentally ill prisoners is in the end the responsibility of the Government, who have encouraged both the greater use of prison and the increasing of prison sentences in a vain attempt to win a punitive war of attrition with the main Opposition party? Does he not see that this incident is a cause for soul searching not only in the Prison Service, but at the highest level of politics?

Jack Straw: These are local prisons, and there is always a substantial movement in and out of any local prison. Local prisons, especially those in London, are very difficult to manage and I pay tribute to the staff. That has always been the case, but we have engaged in a massive building programme and so far-touch wood-we have kept prisoners out of police cells for at least the last year. Should the main Opposition party wish to trade stories about the state of our prisons, I can say that on any measure they are now in infinitely better state than they were under the previous Administration.
	On the hon. Gentleman's key point about mental illness, I accept that there are far too many prisoners in prison who ought to be in hospital because of their mental health problems. That is why we set up the Bradley review, the findings of which we are now seeking to implement.

Alan Beith: Pursuing the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth), ought it not to be a much clearer objective of the prison system that prisoners are assigned to, and kept in, institutions with regimes that have the capacity to reduce their likelihood of reoffending? Does the Secretary of State recognise that a lot of the time that is not happening, which is why such disgraceful transfers might not have been so obvious?

Jack Straw: We do, indeed, seek to transfer prisoners whose sentences are of reasonable length to fulfil the major part of their sentence in institutions that might help to reduce their reoffending. I also say to the right hon. Gentleman that reoffending rates have significantly improved, not least as a result of some of the targets we have set. The problem in some of these cases is that these were prisoners who had to go to court. That is the purpose of a local prison. Such prisoners cannot be held miles away from the court they are attending.

Emily Thornberry: Does my right hon. Friend agree that by indulging in these transfers the senior management have not only betrayed the prisoners and the trust we have put in them to treat prisoners properly and fairly, but have also completely eclipsed the hard work of prison officers who, in fact, have been improving conditions in the two prisons concerned?

Jack Straw: May I first pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), in whose constituency Pentonville prison lies? I know of her great concern about the prison and her great commitment to the work of the staff. On her overall point, I entirely agree with her; one of the tragedies of what has happened is that, as Dame Anne Owers has said, all the good work and the improvement in progress, which was specified in the reports and which the Opposition failed to acknowledge, has been eclipsed by this terrible series of incidents.

Douglas Hogg: May I say to the Secretary of State that the real concern is that the practice is very widespread? Will the inquiry look into that? Will it also examine the role of the medical staff who have been involved? Will he alert the independent monitoring boards of each prison to address this particular question?

Jack Straw: On the issue of whether the practice is widespread, that is obviously a question for all of us-it was the first question that I asked. That is why I have set up this detailed investigation, which will look, first, at the transfer records for each prison that has had an announced inspection to check whether any prisoners were shipped out and shipped back again-that will be the key indicator. If any such prisoners are found, further investigations will be carried out. I also accept what the right hon. and learned Gentleman says about medical staff.

Fiona Mactaggart: We do not yet know whether these transfers contributed to a prisoner killing himself, but would the Lord Chancellor agree to report to this House, following the report of the prisons ombudsman and the coroner's report, on whether that was the case in this instance and on the number of prisoners up and down the country who are killing themselves while they are in our prisons?

Jack Straw: On the specific issue, the reports of the prisons and probation ombudsman are normally published. The publication of this report is a matter for the ombudsman, not for me, however, I fully understand the concern of the House to see the report. An inquest will also take place, probably after that. It is entirely appropriate that that should take place before any announcement is made to the House, but I will, of course, keep the House properly informed. Any suicide in prison is deeply to be regretted, but I just say to the House that the number for last year, 60, is lower-the figure fluctuates considerably-than it has been since 1997.

Angela Watkinson: If there is to be further investigation into any other possible occurrences of transfers related to the inspections, how will such transfers be identified and separated from the more routine transfers that take place when prisoners are making court appearances, which so often lead to their curtailing any education or training courses in which they are involved?

Jack Straw: I am quite clear that those who are doing the investigation will, from their knowledge, be able to spot why a transfer took place. If a transfer took place from Wandsworth, Pentonville, Brixton or any other prison to a court-this happens every day-it is perfectly obvious why the person was transferred. On the other hand, if there was a transfer to a court and then a transfer to a different prison, and the original prison was being subject to inspection, that would trigger a warning light. This process of investigation will give a very good indication of whether, prima facie, this practice has been going on. I must say that the director general of the Prison Service, Phil Wheatley, and his senior staff, as well as the chief inspector and I, are totally and utterly committed to checking and checking again as to whether this practice has been going on at any other prison. As Mr. Wheatley said this morning, he has been a prison governor and in his experience, he has never come across such practice, but we may have to live and learn.

Peter Bone: I spoke to the governor of HMP Wellingborough this morning. He was aghast at the practice and confirmed that it had never happened in Wellingborough. Will the Lord Chancellor explain to me why the inspections are announced in advance and why the inspectors do not just turn up?

Jack Straw: Some inspections are announced in advance and a great many are done unannounced. This is a matter for the chief inspector of prisons. I understand that her view is that having announced inspections provides an opportunity for the prison to ensure that it is in good order and to meet objectives previously set. She does not inspect to targets-she has made that clear-but she inspects to key indicators of what she describes as a "healthy" prison. At the same time, the inspectorate does use-I believe that it uses these more than formal, announced inspections-unannounced inspections. How the chief inspector does it is entirely a matter for her, but I think that the whole House will wish to place on record its thanks to her; it was in an announced inspection that this situation emerged.
	The other point that I would simply make to all those Members who have asked whether such activity is more widespread than the current examples is that the information about these transfers emerged through complaints that prisoners made to their lawyers. Prisoners are fully entitled to write to their lawyers, to the ombudsman, to HM inspectorate of prisons and to Members of this House confidentially and without that information or those letters being seen by the prison staff. We can rest assured, given the publicity that has been given to this matter, that if further prisoners feel that they have been subject to such unacceptable transfers we will know one way or another.

Royal Mail

Patrick McFadden: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to repeat a statement made by my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills about the decision of the Communication Workers Union to take national industrial action later this week.
	No one is in doubt about the damage that such industrial action will cause, but those who advocate strike action have not been clear about why it is threatened. The dispute at the Royal Mail is about modernisation, which has been the subject of localised strikes, particularly in London, for many months. We know from the Hooper review on postal services about the company's need to change and reform in the face of a postal market that is being transformed as people switch to text, e-mail and direct debit, and as the growing area of mail, which is parcels, offers a variety of alternative operators from which to choose.
	Royal Mail has to respond to the fact that 10 million fewer letters are posted each day than were posted three years ago, and that total mail volumes have fallen by a further 8 per cent. in the first half of this year. In other words, if it stands still, the company faces terminal decline. Following a national strike two years ago, the union-the CWU-and management reached a national agreement on pay and modernisation. The agreement set a framework of four phases for bringing essential change to Royal Mail. The first three have been introduced throughout the country but are being resisted in some places, which I will come to shortly. The changes have involved the introduction of more walk-sorting machines and new working practices including expecting employees to do the full number of hours that they are paid to work.
	Phase four, the next phase of modernisation, is yet to be agreed in substance rather than outline and will be about a new framework for improving industrial relations. That will include introducing walk-sequencing machines to sort the postal delivery round and developing new business opportunities along with a new system for rewarding employees.
	In the majority of Royal Mail's workplaces, phases one to three of the national agreement have been implemented without any local industrial action being mounted. Outdated working practices have been replaced and efficiency is being improved, but in other parts of the country-most notably in London-there has been repeated non-co-operation and industrial action to frustrate the agreement's implementation. It is claimed by union representatives that in London the management are unilaterally imposing change that goes beyond the 2007 agreement's first three phases. Management contest that, pointing out that all that London is being asked to accept is what everyone else in the country is delivering under the first three phases. It is those local disputes that have now escalated into the threatened national strike.
	I very much regret what is happening and, to put it candidly, we think that it is totally self-defeating for our postal services and for those who work in them. Taking industrial action will not resolve the dispute; it will serve only to drive more customers away from Royal Mail. In the delivery of parcels-where there would otherwise be a prospect of growth-Royal Mail's reputation for reliability could be irrevocably damaged and in the delivery of letters such action will lead to a further twist in the downward spiral of mail volumes. Business will be quick to recognise that, while one can picket a delivery office to stop the service or refuse to deliver letters, one cannot picket the ever present internet.
	Royal Mail's small business customers will look on with anger and exasperation. Just as there are signs of the economy recovering and the prospects for their businesses improving, strikes now will set them back and put their businesses in jeopardy. Royal Mail's finances will be plunged into the red. Last year, out of a £6.7 billion mail business turnover, the company made less than 1 per cent profit. One thing that the company cannot afford is strikes and industrial action.
	Change in a big organisation is never easy, but for the Royal Mail it is unavoidable. Let me make it clear that, contrary to what some may say, the dispute is not about pensions. The trustees are engaged in their periodic assessment of the pensions deficit and, lest there be any doubt, let me make it clear that the Government's policy on the pensions deficit will not be dictated by strike action. The Government were prepared to take on the pensions deficit as part of a package of modernising measures set out in the Postal Services Bill. Sadly, however, the CWU did not support those proposals.
	When it comes to financing, the Government and the taxpayer have not held back. We have made available £1.2 billion to finance a modernisation and investment programme, and that remains on the table.
	We are, of course, in frequent contact with both management and the union. They have continued talking today, and we strongly welcome that. Our message to them has been clear: put your customers first; strikes are not the way to resolve differences or safeguard the future of our postal services.
	The Royal Mail needs management and unions to have a relentless focus on turning it into an efficient, modern postal company, protecting as many jobs as possible and providing customers with the services that they need. Both sides should put behind them, once and for all, the endless cycle of disputes. We will, of course, continue to encourage a settlement, but we cannot impose good industrial relations on the company, or disinvent the internet. An independent third party may well be needed to help the two sides resolve their differences. ACAS is engaged, but we have to be realistic: it will be far easier for ACAS to play an effective role if the threat of a national strike is lifted.
	The Government are ensuring that vital services to the public, especially those who are most vulnerable, are maintained. If necessary, the Department for Work and Pensions will implement plans to ensure that the small minority of pensioners and others on benefits who still receive their cheques in the post will be able to pick them up from their nearest post office. If the disruption is prolonged, the Department of Health and NHS trusts will make alternative arrangements to transport appointment notifications, blood samples and test results.
	We urge both sides to make every effort to avoid damaging industrial action and to resolve this dispute. That is what is in the interests of the Royal Mail, its employees and its customers. I commend this statement to the House.

Kenneth Clarke: First, I join the Minister in hoping that management and trade unions find some way of resolving the dispute and avoiding a totally suicidal strike. They should return to the previously agreed programme of modernisation as quickly as possible, in the interests of both the customers and staff of Royal Mail.
	Does the Minister agree that we should welcome the management's announcement that, if necessary, they will recruit temporary staff to maintain the service to customers? Many small businesses would be threatened by a continued dispute, and of course the possibility of disruption to the Christmas mail looms before us. I hope that he will welcome the management's decision in that regard.
	The Minister's statement was factually accurate, but surely he does not think that he can wave away the Government's involvement in this matter. Is it not plain that it was the Government's weakness in conceding on their policy of part-privatising Royal Mail that almost immediately encouraged the Communication Workers Union to believe that it could move to reopen the two-year-old deal on modernisation and contemplate strike action? There seems to be a clear relationship between the two.
	I welcome the continued commitment to the recommendations of the Hooper report, which we share, and the three key proposals which have to go together if they are to proceed at all. I hope the Minister can reassure me that that resolution to the existing policy will be maintained in the face of the undoubted pressures that he will come under if a strike goes on. After the cave-in on the Bill, can he reassure me that his weak Prime Minister will not next induce him to start taking apart the Hooper recommendations and making concessions to those who are challenging the modernisation programme?
	As the Minister said in his statement-this is a stark remark-if the company stands still, it faces terminal decline. Is it acceptable in the face of such a dramatic remark for the Minister to admit that the Government have no policy, are proceeding with no Bill, and are capable of doing nothing as the service looks likely to face a risk of terminal decline? Does he agree that if things continue in this way-I do not blame him personally; I am sure it is the Prime Minister and the majority of the Cabinet who are responsible for this frozen impasse-he will leave to the next Government after the election in May whatever wreckage remains of an extremely important public service and the mail system of this country? He seemed powerless to do anything about it.
	Finally, would it be fair to regard the issue, as I regard it, as a symbol of the Government's continuing inability to modernise and reform our great public services? Do not the facts as set out in the Minister's statement show that on that front this dying Government are weak, impotent, powerless and, like most members of the public, a horrified spectator of events as they unfold in the Royal Mail, over which they no longer have any control and for which they can no longer take any responsibility?

Patrick McFadden: There is, of course, nothing new about the Royal Mail hiring temporary staff at this time of year. It does that every year. This year it is hiring more because of the situation that it faces.
	The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked me about Government involvement. The Government have put up £1.2 billion to finance the modernisation that is at the heart of the dispute. Far from that being delayed or held back by the dispute, we want to see it proceed because that is in the interests of the Royal Mail and its workers. What we cannot do is impose on the company the productive industrial relations that are needed for that to happen. In the end, ACAS involvement or not, that must be down to management and unions working through the issues that are needed to take modernisation forward.
	The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke about the Postal Services Bill. I note his party's position, as set out in the  Financial Times this morning. We said that we would not proceed with the Bill at this time owing to market conditions, and that is precisely what his party set out as its position in the  Financial Times this morning. It too would want to test the market before proceeding with the Bill. I note his position on that, as set out this morning.

John Thurso: I am grateful to the Minister for the courtesy of an advance copy of his statement.
	As the Minister made clear, Royal Mail is no longer the essential business tool that it once was. The combination of electronic communications, growth in parcel delivery services and competition for business mail means that Royal Mail has a future only if it becomes competitive in that new environment. The present dispute will not assist that goal. It may, indeed, hasten the demise of Royal Mail by precipitating a flight to other suppliers.
	Does the Minister agree that many larger businesses have already announced plans to place contracts with alternative suppliers, but that others which are less able to do so are particularly vulnerable, and that this dispute will have a disproportionate effect on them? I refer, in particular, to small businesses, some of our most vulnerable citizens and people in rural areas, all of whom have the least alternative choice. Does the Minister agree that a prolonged dispute poses a clear and present danger to the universal service obligation? What steps will the Government take to ensure its survival?
	The Minister has assured us that benefits payments by the Department for Work and Pensions will, for those in receipt, be available at post offices. Will he give similar assurances regarding winter fuel payments, which are coming up shortly? What about the volume of mail that Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs sends out on tax credits, and its other correspondence? Will the Minister confirm that the Government plan to seek alternative suppliers in the private sector for their own postal business? What assessment has been made of the impact of that decision on Royal Mail's future?
	Part of the reason why we are in this situation is the stalled legislation. The Minister well knows that I would not have begun it, but he must now accept that having started and then stopped is worse than not having started in the first place.

Patrick McFadden: I shall try to go through the issues that the hon. Gentleman raises. He is absolutely right that the world has changed and people have communications alternatives. That stark fact should concentrate everyone's minds as they stand on the threshold of the dispute. It is why, indeed, a strike would be so tragic for our postal service and those who work in it.
	The hon. Gentleman referred to the switch from mail, and, as I said in my statement, there is already a highly developed market in parcels. High street retail chains already, sadly, carry adverts saying, "Fed up with postal strikes? We don't use the Royal Mail", and I fear that we will simply see more of that if the strike goes ahead.
	Some 50 companies account for some 40 per cent. of the mail that is posted by letter every day. If a major shift is made by those companies, away from mail to paperless billing and greater incentives for direct debit payment, it could do permanent damage to Royal Mail's prospects. Again, my fear is that industrial action would only make such a shift more likely.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about the delivery of pensions and benefits. Those sent through the post are now a fairly small minority; most are paid either directly into bank accounts or through the Post Office card account. As I said, for the minority who still receive benefits through the post, the Department for Work and Pensions will make arrangements to try to ensure that people do not lose out on the money to which they are entitled.

Ian McCartney: As a former postal services Minister, I must say that we have been 12 years in coming to this point, and it is really important that a Sir George Bain-type figure is appointed to negotiate a settlement-negotiate, negotiate, negotiate. Why? Because front-line staff and customers in every one of our constituencies deserve better. If people give up the skill, knowledge and commitment to negotiate, they will be as much use as a chocolate fireguard at defending their members' interests or the company's long-term interests. I ask my right hon. Friend to make sure that the management and the union get around the table to resolve the issue to ensure that the company and its front-line staff have a future, and that its customers can get on with their business.

Patrick McFadden: My right hon. Friend makes his point very effectively. On third party involvement, ACAS is engaged, but I believe that it would be far better able to carry out the very effective role that it often can carry out if the threat of industrial action were lifted. ACAS stands ready to give assistance in the dispute, and, if the management and union believe that that would be effective, the service is available.
	My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: in the end, whatever the involvement of a third party, it will be down to the management and the union to work out for Royal Mail a future that gets away from the pattern, seen not just once but consistently, of localised disputes, time and time again, over changes that would be normal practice in other parts of industry.

Several hon. Members: rose -

Mr. Speaker: Order. About 20 Members are seeking to catch my eye. There is important business to follow in the form of the Second Reading debate, so once again I am looking for single, short supplementary questions and brief replies.

Peter Luff: Does not the Minister see that the uncertain note that the Government have sounded about the future of the Postal Services Bill must have contributed to the decision of the Communication Workers Union to threaten industrial action? Can he therefore clarify the future of that Bill, which is still languishing under remaining orders on the Order Paper? That would also have the benefit of clarifying the limbo into which Postcomm and Ofcom have been thrown by the delay to the Bill.

Patrick McFadden: During discussions on the Hooper package we were told time and again that there was no need for some of the reforms suggested in it because everyone was up for change. Yet since the Government said that we would not proceed with the Bill at this stage, we have seen not change but a return to the destructive pattern of industrial disputes over change and modernisation in the postal service. There was an opportunity for those who disagreed with the Hooper package to show that change could be delivered, but that opportunity has not been taken up; in fact, the very opposite has happened.
	On regulation, we will encourage a closer working together of Postcomm and Ofcom, because the postal service must be seen in the light of the wider communications market. To go back to the point made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), there are alternatives, and we are all using them every day.

Geraldine Smith: If Royal Mail's case is so strong, why is it not prepared to go to arbitration? Why is it saying that it will consider it only if the union calls off the strike? That is silly playground posturing. It should get to arbitration, and arbitration should be binding on both sides. This is causing misery for businesses and people up and down the country, and the Government are washing their hands of it. Get in and sort this out!

Patrick McFadden: It is absolutely not the case that the Government are washing their hands of this dispute. We remain in regular contact with the union and the management. Ministers have met union representatives twice in recent weeks, and we are also in regular contact with the management. As I said, ACAS is engaged and stands ready to help, but of course it is easier for it to play a constructive role if the threat of industrial action is lifted.

Peter Atkinson: Does the Minister have any idea how many postal workers, particularly in London, have second jobs? It is the threat that they might have to work a full shift for which they are paid that is adding to the militancy.  [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Patrick McFadden: It is certainly true that one of the changes agreed in the 2007 agreement is that, instead of the previous practice, which was known as job and finish and sometimes meant people going home a couple of hours before the end of the hours for which they were paid, postal workers would work the hours for which they were paid, which might also mean being more flexible about how they went about their job during that period.

Colin Burgon: The Minister, in his disappointingly one-sided statement, talked about the need for productive industrial relations. How can there possibly be productive industrial relations with a management who sabotaged the fourth phase of the agreement and who he knows, in his heart of hearts, have no commitment to keeping the service in the public sector and want to privatise it so that they can put money in their own pockets?

Patrick McFadden: Discussions about phase four of the agreement are continuing. That is absolutely essential, because in many ways phase four is more important than phases one to three. Phase four is about the large-scale introduction of walk-sequencing machines that will sort the round by post and, if that change is introduced successfully, place Royal Mail on a par with some of the more modernised postal services elsewhere in Europe.

Alistair Carmichael: Even without yet having had the impact of strike action we have had the alarming news in Scotland that one of the major public sector contracts-the Procurement Scotland contract, which deals with mail to the NHS, colleges and most councils in Scotland-is going to be given to a private sector operator. What can the Minister do to ensure that the haemorrhaging of business from private businesses, to which he referred, does not spread to the public sector?

Patrick McFadden: Competition exists in the postal service, and it will not go away and cannot be wished away. I want a Royal Mail that is fit to win in that market, rather than one that simply wishes competition to go away. The most fundamental challenge to Royal Mail is not competition from other mail companies but competition from other communications technologies. That must lie at the heart of the response to the threatened dispute.

Joan Walley: Everyone listening to the statement will have greeted it with dismay and anger. As long as the Royal Mail is in public ownership, what is done is done in the Government's name. We are talking not about the Premiership but about a precious public institution, so will the Minister instruct Adam Crozier to go to ACAS and get a negotiated solution?

Patrick McFadden: The dismay and anger will be on the part of the public, who cannot understand why a strike should proceed. I have seen a number of interviews about the dispute with spokespeople in recent days, and although various grievances have been outlined, no clear reason has been given why the country, the economy and the public should be facing a national postal strike this week. ACAS is ready to play a role, but it will be far better able to do so if the threat of industrial action is lifted.

Brian Binley: Concern is growing that the Secretary of State is deliberately antagonising the union to commit suicide, to pave the way for full privatisation on the basis that privatising a third of the business is almost impossible to achieve. Will the Minister explain why that concern is not justified?

Patrick McFadden: We have been clear throughout that we will keep Royal Mail in the public sector, and there is no hidden agenda to privatise it. We made that clear throughout the debates on the Hooper report.

Chris Mullin: Further to that point, I am glad to note what the Minister says about the Government's intentions, but is he aware that there is an underlying fear among postal workers that the long-term objective of management is to privatise and casualise the industry? Can he say anything to allay the fears of the work force on that point?

Patrick McFadden: The best way to allay the fears of the work force is to have a secure agreement about the modernisation of Royal Mail that is implemented. Whether or not third parties are involved, that is what must come out of this. The tragedy is that we could achieve that without a national dispute and the damage that it causes.

Edward Timpson: The Minister is, I know, aware that the closure of the Crewe mail centre would result in significant job losses that could equate in the current climate to an increase in local jobseeker's allowance claimants of 25 per cent. Does he agree that, for the sake of local employment in a recession, it is important that we separate the original review of the mail centre network from the current dispute?

Patrick McFadden: I am afraid that I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should put the issue of mail centres on ice. We have pretty much the same number of centres around the country as we had before the internet was invented. I do not know whether he heard what I said in my statement about the fall in mail volumes, but of course that will mean changes to mail centres. I appreciate the effect that that can have in an area if it loses its mail centre, but I have to disagree with him because it would be wrong for the Government to instruct Royal Mail that it had to keep the same number of mail centres for ever and a day when it is trying to introduce change throughout the rest of the company.

John Robertson: I declare an interest: as somebody who was a CWU member for 21 years, I am perhaps not as unbiased as some.
	The Post Office and Royal Mail management have been known for years as not being able to get on with their work force, yet we have done nothing about it. We saw on television last Sunday a document come into the public domain that was intended to inflame the situation. Now they are talking about increasing the number of part-time workers, inflaming it even more. Does my right hon. Friend not agree that it is time that they sat down, took away such inflammatory ideas and reached a proper negotiated settlement? If ACAS has to be part of that, let us help ACAS rather than use the strike as an excuse.

Patrick McFadden: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that there has been a history of poor industrial relations in Royal Mail. Not only did we have a national strike two years ago and various local disputes in between, leading up to the current situation, but poor industrial relations have been a constant feature of the attempt to introduce change in the company.
	My hon. Friend referred to a story that was in the media over the weekend. Let me read out Royal Mail's statement on the story:
	"The contents of the e-mail sent to us by Newsnight do not reflect Royal Mail's policy, strategy or position in relation to the current dispute with the CWU...No member of the board or the senior management team at Royal Mail has seen, or is aware of any such presentation...For the avoidance of any doubt Royal Mail has never had any strategy to derecognise the CWU and nor would we seek to do so."

Bob Spink: Will the Minister give an undertaking that any mail that moves to the private sector during the dispute will return 100 per cent. and immediately to Royal Mail at the end of the dispute? Will the Government get off their butt and actually get in touch with Adam Crozier and the management?

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I just gently say to the hon. Gentleman, who is an experienced Member, that one question means one question?

Patrick McFadden: There is no question of our not being in touch with those involved in the dispute. As I said, we have been in regular touch with people on both sides of it. On the question of lost business, the fear for Royal Mail is that people have alternatives. If the company's service is constantly threatened by strike action, the likelihood is that people will use alternatives. I believe that that is tragic for Royal Mail, for our postal service and for the good men and women who work in it.

David Anderson: I am sure that the Minister will agree that everyone should do what they can to cool this down. If that is the case, why does he think that the management of Royal Mail have told workers today that if they attend the picket line on their day off, they will be deducted a day's pay? Is that the way to promote good industrial relations?

Patrick McFadden: I am not aware of the announcement to which my hon. Friend refers. I agree that cool heads are probably required in this situation, because if the strike goes ahead, it will not be in the interests of Royal Mail or those who work in it.

Douglas Hogg: Will the right hon. Gentleman take every opportunity to impress upon trade union leaders that in view of the changes in technology and information communication their only future lies in accepting fundamental and continuing change, and that being so, they do not enjoy public support?

Patrick McFadden: The frustration of the situation is that everyone says that they are up for change in the face of the technological revolution to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman refers, but when it comes down to it, attempts to implement change are constantly frustrated by disputes. It is absolutely true that Royal Mail and its workers must get beyond that pattern if we are to have a prosperous postal service in future and to maintain the universal service that, as a social glue, is so important to the whole country.

Dennis Skinner: Is the Minister aware that it takes two sides to cause a dispute? Is he aware that the ballot result was 70 per cent. in favour? That is democracy, and it is set against employers who have inflamed the situation by deciding to recruit 30,000 agency workers. I know which side I am on. I am on the side of those who deliver the mail.

Patrick McFadden: My understanding is that the 30,000 people recruited are not agency workers, but that they are directly hired, as Royal Mail hires every year. My hon. Friend is absolutely right-I have huge respect for him-that it will take two sides to negotiate a proper solution.
	Talks are taking place today-I said this in my statement-and we welcome that. We hope even at this late stage that a settlement is possible without the damaging industrial action that has been threatened. My message to both sides is this: keep talking, keep focusing on the public, keep focusing on the small businesses that depend on Royal Mail and try to avoid the strike action threatened for later this week.

Mark Field: I was disappointed by how little the Minister had to say about the protection of the everyday consumer. With that in mind, does he rule out this Government removing the last vestiges of the monopoly that Royal Mail has enjoyed, to the detriment of so many of the consumers who have relied on that service?

Patrick McFadden: Royal Mail does not have a monopoly, and that is the point that I am making. It operates in a competitive environment, and if a strike goes ahead, those who can use alternatives will be more likely to do so. That will be damaging for Royal Mail and it will also damage those who work for it. That is why a strike would be self-defeating, and we should do all that we can to avoid it.

Emily Thornberry: Is the Minister aware that in Islington an agreement was reached under which there would be cuts in staff numbers and changes in working practices to pave the way for more machinery-but that the difficulty was that national management walked in and tore that agreement up? That is why the workers there are on strike.

Patrick McFadden: The allegation in London by the union is that management have gone beyond the agreement reached in 2007. Management contests that and says that all that London is being expected to implement are the changes that have already been accepted and implemented throughout the country. It is precisely that point about which the two sides are meeting as we speak, to talk it through and try to avoid industrial action later this week.

Peter Bone: Earlier, the Minister skilfully dodged one of the questions asked by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). Will he make it clear whether he thinks that the 30,000 temporary staff being hired by Royal Mail are a good thing or a bad thing?

Patrick McFadden: That is what it does every year.

Mark Durkan: The Minister must know that parts of the statement that he has made today, and the one that has been made in the House of Lords, will be contested by the union. How does he think that that is helpful in this situation, and can Ministers not move beyond providing questionable commentary in the House and get the union and the company into the same room at the same time, with the Government?

Patrick McFadden: As I said, we have remained in constant touch with both sides and we have urged them to focus on the public-the people who depend on Royal Mail-and avoid strike action. Of course we stand ready to help in any way we can, but we cannot impose good industrial relations on a company that has a history of going on strike whenever an attempt is made to implement change.

Tony Lloyd: Morale among postal workers is at a very low ebb; that is why there was such a strong vote in favour of strike action by people who know that a strike would be disastrous. In that context, is it not right and proper for us to insist on mediation that brings union and management into the same room, to work and work until there are some common grounds for agreement? They will not do that on their own, because there is no trust between the management and the union.

Patrick McFadden: There has been a history of third party involvement in Royal Mail. Some years ago, Lord Sawyer carried out an inquiry into industrial relations in the Royal Mail, and George Bain and others have also examined the company in the past. There has been no shortage of third party involvement. ACAS stands ready to play a role if both parties think that that would be helpful. I am sure that ACAS would be able to play a productive role, but that would have a far better chance of working if the threat of industrial action were lifted.

Lindsay Hoyle: Is it not fair to say that businesses are being put at risk if the strike continues? Families of postal workers are also losing income in this desperate situation. Has not the time come for the Minister, who is the custodian of the shares in Royal Mail, to use his influence and shareholder power to ensure that the two parties sit round the table with ACAS and do not come out until this has been resolved amicably?

Patrick McFadden: They are round the table. There has been nothing lacking in the volume of meetings between Royal Mail management and the unions. I have heard talk of 70 to 80 meetings. ACAS is ready to assist and, as I have said on more than one occasion today, it would be easier for ACAS to play a productive role if the threat of industrial action were lifted.

Jim Cunningham: It is not clear to me, from what the Minister has said, whether Royal Mail is prepared to go to ACAS. We know that the trade unions are prepared to do so. The situation is pretty serious. I have been involved in a few disputes in my time, and it is not easy for anybody to go on strike as a result of intransigent management. Small businesses and the families of those involved are suffering because of what is happening. There have been a lot of uncertainties-for 12 years, somebody said-and the Minister should now intervene directly.

Patrick McFadden: I believe that Royal Mail is prepared to involve ACAS in the dispute, but obviously it feels that that would have more chance of success if the threat of industrial action was lifted.

Marine Accident Investigation Branch (Reports)

Motion for leave to introduce a Bill (Standing Order No. 23)

David Cairns: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision to oblige shipping companies, port operators and other bodies to comply with recommendations made in reports of the Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents and of the Marine Accident Investigation Branch; and for connected purposes.
	On 19 December 2007, the Greenock-based tug, the Flying Phantom, sank in thick fog in the River Clyde with the loss of three of her crew. The dead men were Eric Blackely, aged 57, from Gourock; Robert Cameron, aged 65, from Houston in Renfrewshire; and the skipper, Stephen Humphreys, from Greenock, who was just 33 years old. There was one survivor: Brian Aitchison, from the borders.
	In the aftermath, an investigation was carried out by the marine accident investigation branch. The investigation was thorough and exhaustive, and finally reported in September 2008, some nine months after the accident. The report runs to 55 pages and contains key safety-related recommendations addressed to all the protagonists: Svitzer Marine Ltd, which owned the tug and employed the crew; the port operator, Clydeport; the British Tugowners Association; and Lloyds Register. Yet, despite the fact that the MAIB is a statutory body, created by the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, and reports directly to the Secretary of State for Transport, its recommendations have no force of law. They are not legally binding and can be ignored with impunity.
	That exposes a fundamental flaw in the structure of the MAIB. My Bill would make its recommendations legally binding, within a proper framework for implementation and appeal. To understand the need for the Bill, hon. Members need to consider how the MAIB has been constituted. Its website states:
	"As far as the MAIB is concerned, the sole objective of investigating an accident is to determine its circumstances...with the aim of improving the safety of life at sea and the avoidance of accidents in the future. It is not the purpose to apportion liability, nor, except so far as is necessary to achieve the fundamental purpose, to apportion blame. We do not enforce laws or carry out prosecutions."
	That is all well and good, but it raises a question: if, after an exhaustive inquiry, the MAIB makes recommendations that it believes will improve the safety of life at sea and help to avoid accidents in the future, and if such recommendations are then ignored, what is the point of it? I raised that point in a meeting with the Minister then responsible for transport and his officials. I ventured to suggest that MAIB recommendations could be ignored with impunity. "That's not the case," said an official. I was told that if a company or an organisation does not comply, 12 months later the MAIB can put a note on its website to that effect. That is not good enough. It should not be left to the discretion of companies or organisations whether or not to comply with key safety recommendations made by the very body whose job it is to determine the cause of accidents and to prevent them in future.
	In the case of the Flying Phantom, there is an ongoing dispute about whether the recommendations have in fact been complied with, especially on the critical issue of assessing the risks caused by fog. Clydeport says that it has complied and that the issue of fog warning systems has been addressed. The trade union Unite, led by its Scottish regional secretary John Quigley, which represents the crew, says that Clydeport has not complied. More importantly for me, the widows of the men who died continue to believe that the river is not as safe as it could be, and that other families might have to face the terrible ordeal that they and their families have gone through.
	The issue is far too important to be left to that "He says/she says" approach. Recommendations have been made and should be enforced or properly appealed against. The grey area that we currently occupy serves no one at all, least of all the companies and organisations involved. I do not want my Bill or this speech to be seen as an exercise in bashing Clydeport. It is an extremely important company in my constituency and I seek to enjoy good relations with it. I also know that the harbourmaster, Captain Ron Bailey, is a decent and conscientious man who is dedicated to the safety of those who sail the waters of the Clyde.
	I understand that Clydeport has reservations about the way in which the MAIB went about the investigation, and it is quite entitled to have and to express those reservations. However, the dubiety about how recommendations have been implemented-or about whether they have been implemented at all-leaves us all in the worst of all possible worlds. That is why calls have been made for a further judicial inquiry. However, the facts of the case have already been established. Such an inquiry would be likely to replicate the findings of the MAIB, at considerable public expense. However, in the absence of a satisfactory outcome, no wonder such calls have been made: at least the recommendations of a judicial inquiry would have to be complied with.
	I fully understand that there are complex legal issues at stake and a fear that if companies thought that liabilities would flow from an MAIB report, they would not co-operate as fully as they do now, but that is just too bad. The current situation is absurd and should be changed by means of a simple amendment to the Merchant Shipping Act 1995.
	Two years ago, just one week before Christmas, three families lost their husbands, sons, brothers and fathers. For those families, the festive season has taken on a tragic quality. It is impossible to meet the widows of those men-Mrs. Helen Humphreys, Mrs. Linda Cameron and Mrs. Eileen Blackely-and not be impressed by the great dignity and composure with which they have endured their terrible ordeal. They are not after untold riches in compensation. They are not looking for heads to roll. They know that nothing can bring their husbands back to them. All that they have asked me to do is ensure that recommendations in MAIB reports are implemented, so that other families are not put through the appalling misery that they continue to suffer. For their sake, and in memory of the men who died, that is what we should do.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Ordered,
	That David Cairns, Jim Sheridan, Mr. Alan Reid, John Robertson, Miss Anne Begg, Mr. Russell Brown, Mr. Brian H. Donohoe, Mr. Ian Davidson, Mark Lazarowicz, Mr. Frank Doran and Ms Katy Clark present the Bill.
	David Cairns accordingly presented the Bill.
	 Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Thursday 22 October and to be printed (Bill 151).

Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

[Relevant Documents: The Tenth Report from the Public Administration Select Committee, Session 2007-08, on Constitutional Renewal: Draft Bill and White Paper, HC 499, and the Government response, Cm 7688; and the Eleventh Report from the Justice Committee, Session 2008-09, on Constitutional Reform and Renewal, HC 923, and the Government response, HC 1017.]
	 Second Reading

Jack Straw: I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
	I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	In 1997, the Government embarked on an unprecedented programme of constitutional reform. Power was devolved away from Westminster to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, fundamental rights were enshrined in the Human Rights Act, freedom of information legislation was introduced, national statistics were placed on an entirely independent basis, the Bank of England was made independent, and the first step was taken towards a reformed House of Lords.
	Surveying all this in an editorial yesterday,  The Guardian newspaper asked us to
	"look at the last 12 years. Labour's dispersal of power, had it been set out as a blueprint, would have appeared revolutionary."
	Actually, it was set out as a blueprint, although each step has always appeared rather prosaic. There has rarely been intense excitement in the House, apart from over the devolution Bills, as each step has been taken. I recall another exception, involving my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), one memorable evening during an untimed Report stage debate-which I hope to see back-of the Freedom of Information Bill, when what was described as a mutual seminar was engaged in. I offered to alter the Bill for the better, although some colleagues perhaps think differently. Anyway, I offered to alter it to make it more workable as a result of the intense debate that took place. Generally, however, these proposals have been widely accepted.
	This Bill is similar, because, while each of its proposals could be dismissed as prosaic, when added to all the other changes that have been introduced in the past dozen years, they will add up to a major shift in power away from Whitehall to Parliament and to the British people. In other words, the Bill builds on our achievements and has been designed to bring about the right relationship between Parliament, the Government and the citizen.
	The provenance of the Bill is the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr. Brown), just after he became Prime Minister in June 2007. Indeed, his announcement to the House on 3 July was his first major announcement on any issue as Prime Minister. Alongside that announcement, I published the Green Paper "The Governance of Britain", which set out further proposals for reforming our constitutional arrangements.

Keith Vaz: Nobody can doubt that the Government have pursued a huge agenda on constitutional reform, but may I press my right hon. Friend on the way our judges have been appointed? Does he feel that we perhaps went a little too quickly as far as judicial appointments were concerned-hence the concerns that have been expressed about some of the constitutional changes? I am not talking about the grand vision of what the Government have done-which has been amazing, in my view-but about some of the detail, which really needs to be scrutinised very carefully.

Jack Straw: I agree with the gravamen of what my right hon. Friend says. Surprisingly-or amazingly, to pick up the adverb used my right hon. Friend-not everything that the Government have done over the last 12 years has been absolutely perfect.  [Interruption.] Much has been but, with the benefit of hindsight, the changes to judicial appointments, although very well intentioned and aimed at ensuring that Ministers-in practice, only one Minister, the Lord Chancellor-were removed from the process, have had some odd and perverse consequences. The process has become longer and it is also a matter of great regret that the progress gradually being made to improve the diversity of the judiciary, particularly at senior level, with more women and more black and Asian people has been stemmed. My right hon. Friend, along with the whole House, is concerned about that, and I view it as significant.
	A further matter was aired by Lord Phillips in a major lecture he gave in Kenya when he was Lord Chief Justice. There is a role, although it has to be a careful role, for the Executive in the appointment of the most senior members of the judiciary. That is true in all Administrations and it has to be very carefully exercised. Some of that was accepted in the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, but it remains to be seen whether that, and a more sensitive overall arrangement for judicial appointments, should be introduced in future.

Keith Vaz: It is my understanding, however, that the Bill will do the opposite of what my right hon. Friend intends. Is it not the case that the Bill will remove the Prime Minister from the process of the appointment of the president, the deputy president and members of the Supreme Court?

Jack Straw: It removes the Prime Minister's role, but it does not remove that of the Lord Chancellor. Successive Prime Ministers would probably accept that, in practice, the acceptability of appointments has simply been in the hands of the Lord Chancellor of the day. I may be wrong, but I have never heard of any Prime Minister turning back a recommendation for a senior appointment made by the Lord Chancellor of the day. The Prime Minister today is very happy about that; so, may I say, am I.

Dominic Grieve: We all are.

Jack Straw: But that is not the problem; it is the bureaucratic process that is the problem.
	Let me return to summarising the Bill. Following the publication of the Green Paper, we established a programme of work to look at limiting Executive powers, to examine how the workings of Government could be made more transparent and accountable, and to consider what we might do to reinvigorate our democracy. I have already said that we made significant changes, including to respective arrangements for appointing bishops and the granting of honours, and to further rules on the pre-release of statistics. Gone are the days-the terrible days-of the previous Conservative Administration, when the Secretary of State for Employment, now Lord Tebbit, was able peremptorily to change the definitions of unemployment, for example, 18 times to suit the Government- [Interruption.] Well, it is true. Let me provide a further example for the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie)-that of sitting on major recommendations for major changes in the crime statistics, which would have had the effect of increasing the number of crimes counted. I accepted those changes in 1998, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) accepted further ones in 2001, but the Opposition subsequently used them, quite preposterously, to suggest that violent crime had increased, when it was obviously the counting of violent crime that had increased. In any case, we have done that, just as we have established a Youth Citizenship Commission and published a national security strategy and the draft legislative programme-all those things in the Prime Minister's statement of 3 July 2007.
	I deal now with the detail of the Bill. Ever since the Northcote-Trevelyan report of 1854 and the appointment of the first Civil Service Commission in 1855, the British civil service has been one of the best in the world, renowned for its professionalism, integrity and impartiality, and for its ability to serve successive Administrations of different parties with their confidence-but never before has the service been placed on a proper statutory basis, with protection for its values and its staff. The Bill does that.

Andrew Dismore: I welcome the provisions in the Bill, but one small part is missing: the part that I have been promoting for a number of years in a private Member's Bill to deal with nationality discrimination in Crown employment. There have been many recommendations for dealing with the matter, and I think that the Bill has cross-party support, except from one or two of the backwoodsmen on the Opposition Benches.
	The nationality discrimination that we operate is contrary to a number of the United Kingdom's international human rights obligations. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will consider whether it would be possible to introduce the three or four new clauses necessary to deal with the problem. That would ensure that if rules did require people to be United Kingdom nationals, those rules were genuinely needed and did not perpetuate long-standing discrimination that goes back 200 or 300 years.

Jack Straw: I understand my hon. Friend's concern. I can tell him two things. First, he will have every opportunity in the course of what I believe will be a significant amount of time on the Floor of the House to table his own amendments. Secondly, I shall be happy to ensure that both the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills), and I discuss the matter with him. I understand that proposals with which I used to be familiar-  [Interruption.] Did the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) say something sotto voce?

David Howarth: It is surprising that the Secretary of State does not understand the proposals in great detail, given that the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) seems to present them every year.

Jack Straw: I mean that I used to be completely familiar with them. I do not retain every last detail of every issue that I have ever examined in the House, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman would if he were in my place.
	Part 1 of the Bill places the Civil Service Commission on a statutory footing, and reinforces its independence from Ministers. The commission's status, powers and reporting arrangements are contained in schedule 1, as is the fact that the commissioners are appointed by Her Majesty on merit following fair and open competition. Part 1 also sets out the power of the Minister for the Civil Service and the Foreign Secretary to manage the civil service and the diplomatic service.

Pete Wishart: Although it purports to be United Kingdom-wide, the Bill regrettably ignores the constitutional debate that is raging up in Scotland. The Secretary of State's party, along with the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, engaged in the Calman commission process. That commission recommended that the appointment of chief civil servants should be devolved to Edinburgh. This is the first opportunity that the House has had to legislate for that. Why is such a measure not included in the Bill?

Jack Straw: The Bill does not ignore that debate. Its purpose is to place the existing arrangements for the civil service on a statutory footing. If in due course it were generally agreed to devolve power over the United Kingdom civil service altogether to Scotland and Wales-Northern Ireland has long had a separate civil service-that could come before the House in due course, but as the hon. Gentleman, who I know is a partisan in this respect, will recognise, there is much to be said on both sides. Some of us believe that following a devolution settlement that transferred a significant amount of power from Whitehall and Westminster to Edinburgh, it is important to maintain some of the glue of the Union. While the hon. Gentleman's interest is in putting solvent in the glue, ours is in ensuring that the glue stays strong. I am pleased to note that the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing), who hails from Scotland, endorses what I have said.
	The Government are committed to a civil service that is governed by the key principles of impartiality, integrity, honesty and objectivity. We believe those values should be enshrined in statute. Part 1 therefore requires the Minister for the Civil Service and the Foreign Secretary to prepare and lay before Parliament codes of conduct for the civil service and the diplomatic service, with certain minimum requirements. Those codes will form part of the terms and conditions of civil servants, and the Civil Service Commission will be able to investigate allegations that the code has been breached.

Alan Whitehead: I warmly welcome the proposals to place the civil service on a statutory footing in terms of requirements for its practice, but is my right hon. Friend satisfied that those proposals extend to the full area that the civil service currently occupies? Following the Northcote-Trevelyan report, which resulted in an arrangement for an undifferentiated civil service, we have next steps agencies, non-governmental bodies and various agencies of the civil service which expand the definition of the civil service to a considerable extent. Is he happy that the Bill's provisions cover what we now regard as the civil service in its full, differentiated glory?

Jack Straw: I hope they do, but as my hon. Friend raises this point let me add that I am happy to ensure that they do. There is an issue to do with the growth of next steps agencies and non-departmental public bodies, which have arisen since the reforms introduced by the previous Administration in the early 1990s. It is certainly of concern to me that NDPBs can appoint their own staff and that they are not public servants; that creates difficulties and can lead to unacceptable and unjustifiable levels of pay and wage drift, as well as other anomalies and conditions.
	Let me now turn to an issue in which some of us should declare at least a past interest, and in which others may have a future one: the role of special advisers. It says in my speaking notes:
	"Special advisers have a valuable role to play in advising and assisting Ministers on Government policy."

Eleanor Laing: Hear, hear.

Jack Straw: I thank the hon. Lady for that. I was about to say that I was one of the very first such advisers, back in 1974, but I know that the hon. Lady was too, and there may be others on both sides of the Chamber-such as the hon. Members for Chichester and for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns).
	Special advisers add an important dimension to the advice available to Ministers while reinforcing the political impartiality of the permanent civil service by distinguishing from it the source of political advice and support. Before the introduction of special advisers, civil servants were sometimes placed in a compromising position where they were expected to undertake what were explicitly political roles. Before that, there had been quite a tradition of private secretaries of senior Ministers being appointed by the Minister on a personal basis, which meant they were, in a sense, in the same position as political advisers. I acknowledge that I am biased on this matter, but I think good political advisers can greatly assist not only their Ministers but the functioning of the civil service.

Dominic Grieve: I am grateful to hear the Secretary of State's view, and I have no doubt at all that special advisers can play an important role. The Bill puts the code of conduct for special advisers on a statutory basis, but why should we consider that that will make any difference when the code of conduct as it existed did not prevent Mr. McBride from behaving in the way he did in the Prime Minister's office?

Jack Straw: I think that having the code on a statutory basis will make a difference to behaviour, because there is a difference in terms of the status and authority of a code if it is on a statutory basis. I do not excuse what happened then in the least-nobody would-but codes may be broken under any Government, and where they are, appropriate and tough action must follow.

Alan Beith: May I put to the Lord Chancellor a point that I hope he will keep an eye on? In terms of our discussions in the House about whether the staff of Members should be employed by the House-there are quite good arguments for doing that-we risk getting a mismatch with what is happening in the Bill. If Members have on their staff a person who is essentially a political adviser, were he to be made subject to the civil service-like conditions of the House itself there would be a disparity between Back-Bench Members and Ministers. I hope the right hon. Gentleman recognises that, given his interest in the Bill, he should keep a continuing interest in those discussions.

Jack Straw: We will, of course, keep a continuing interest in those discussions, but let me also say the following. I employed people under Short money when I was in the shadow Cabinet for 10 years and on the shadow Front Bench for 17 years. The truth is that those employed under Short money are subject to far fewer, if any, restrictions than special advisers. I know that to my certain knowledge. I should also mention that the amount of Short money available to the Opposition has trebled in the past dozen years, although they have not made much use of it.

Tony Wright: The Bill is about setting down some fundamental principles. We think that one such principle is that special advisers can "assist" Ministers-the Bill uses that term-but they cannot take Executive action or give orders to civil servants. The Bill does not specify that-does my right hon. Friend think that it should?

Jack Straw: In practice, special advisers cannot do that; I am certainly ready to consider amendments to that effect. May I also just say-I have often reflected on this-that I was an adviser for three and a half years and I have appointed advisers for the past 12 and a half years, and in neither role would I have thought it remotely appropriate for a special adviser to have given instructions to a civil servant, but there are some exceptions, which need to be borne in mind? When he came into office, the Prime Minister decided to repeal the Order in Council, introduced in 1997, that allowed for Jonathan Powell and Alastair Campbell to be able to give such instructions. I think that the Prime Minister was right to repeal that, given the concern, but I do not necessarily think this is something that ought to be enshrined in statute; it may be better if it were in the code, because I do not remotely regard it as a hanging offence for a future Prime Minister to decide, for example, that the head of his office should combine both roles. That is a different role from that of any other special adviser, but we can discuss that when we consider the details of the Bill.
	The Bill also enshrines the principle of appointment to the civil service on merit, and the principle of fair and open competition.
	On the issue of treaties, every year, the UK becomes party to many treaties that result in binding obligations under international law. Treaties that come into force after the Government have expressed their consent to be bound through a formal act such as ratification are subject to the so-called "Ponsonby rule". It was named after Arthur Ponsonby, who was a member of the first Labour Cabinet, which sat for nine months in 1924. The rule requires the treaty to be published and laid before both Houses for a minimum of 21 sitting days prior to ratification, in order to give Parliament an opportunity to scrutinise it.
	Although the Ponsonby rule is well established-it was quickly abandoned by the Conservative Administration who won the election in 1924, but it has been followed post-war-it is based on constitutional convention, rather than law, and Parliament has no ability formally to veto a ratification; it has been a Crown matter. As Foreign Secretary, I felt that that was simply wrong. One of the key roles of a Parliament is to decide whether or not to ratify international instruments; the power should be one for Parliament and, in particular, for this place; it should not be a power for the Crown. I am delighted, as Justice Secretary, to put that right. Part 2 of the Bill places the Ponsonby rule in statute and, for the first time, gives legal force to a negative vote in the Commons on the ratification of international treaties.
	Where Parliament requires more time for scrutiny, the Bill enables a Minister to extend the 21-day period in respect of a treaty. Consistent with the Ponsonby rule, provision is made for flexibility in exceptional circumstances, and there are exceptions for specific categories of treaty that are already subject to other scrutiny arrangements. I am sorry not to see the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) in his place, because I was fully expecting him to rise to the bait in this Bill and say what an outrage it was that European Union treaties were not mentioned in it. For those who wish to take his place and foam at the mouth at the very idea of the European Union, I must say that EU treaties are mentioned. Colleagues will see that clause 24(1) states that this set of arrangements does not cover treaties that amend founding treaties of the European Union. That is because there is already more extensive provision requiring those to be ratified by this House and by the other place.
	The third part of the Bill deals with the House of Lords. The House of Lords Act 1999 was an historic and long overdue reform that removed the majority of hereditary peers. Part 3 of the Bill contains a package of measures to continue along that path towards a more legitimised second Chamber. Colleagues will recall that when that legislation was going through the other place it ran into a roadblock set up by a Cecil, Viscount Cranborne. That family have five centuries, at least, of experience of disrupting government when they do not agree with it.
	As a consequence of the roadblock, a deal was struck between those on the Opposition and Government Benches, under which 92 hereditary peers would remain. Two would remain ex officio: the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Earl Marshal. There is no argument about those positions continuing to remain hereditary as long as we have them. I would advise all colleagues, whatever else they feel about the House of Lords, not to get into an argument about the future of the Lord Great Chamberlain or the Earl Marshal. They are both very good people who do difficult jobs and a great deal of work, which is mainly unsung.
	Under the deal, the other hereditary peers had to form themselves into electoral chambers and elect from their number a total of 90. At the time-as I will perhaps be reminded-my noble Friend Lord Irvine said:
	"I respond to the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, by saying quite unequivocally to the House that that figure of 90 will be honoured by the Government throughout the period of the transitional House."-[ Official Report, House of Lords, 11 May 1999; Vol. 600, c. 1094.]
	I could well be asked why we are changing that arrangement at this stage. First, we are not requiring any current sitting hereditary peer to resign his place in the Lords. They will remain until they depart this mortal coil or until further measures are introduced.
	Secondly, as far as I am concerned, and, I think, as far as the House is concerned, 10 years ago there was no agreement whatsoever even within parties, still less between parties, about the future of the House of Lords. We had a royal commission, which did great work although its recommendations were not entirely accepted, and then abortive votes in this House in February 2003. We then had all-party talks between 2006 and 2007, the presentation of a White Paper in February 2007, which I was honoured to present to the House, and votes in this House that opted clearly, on an all-party basis, for an 80 or 100 per cent. elected Chamber and against all other alternatives. There was then an intensive period of further all-party talks that used that agreement as a template. I pay tribute to colleagues from all parties who took part in those talks. A further White Paper, published in July 2008, set out how that agreement would operate and further work is now being done-

David Howarth: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Jack Straw: In a moment. Further work is now being done to bring about a framework for and draft clauses of a Bill to implement that agreement. In my judgment, therefore, the transitional House that people had in mind 10 years ago is not what we envisage now. We are through that phase.
	Before I accept the intervention from the hon. Member for Cambridge, let me just say that the by-elections have now reached a risible position. We are now electing people to the House of Lords who were not hereditary peers at the time that the House of Lords Act was passed.

Eleanor Laing: But their fathers were.

Jack Straw: They are the sons. I note the point that the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) makes, but because of the time that has elapsed the system of by-elections has been used not to weaken the hereditary principle but to maintain it.
	We should look at the sort of electorates involved, as they flatter the electorates for the unreformed House of Commons before the Reform Act 1832. Dunchurch, which fell into the sea, had 32 voters: in the last election for a hereditary, there were just 27 voters-and 33 candidates. Moreover, one electoral chamber has just four electors.

David Howarth: I thank the Justice Secretary for giving way. As he will know, there were far fewer candidates in the days of the pocket boroughs, but will he confirm that the second part of what he said about the future of the House of Lords takes precedence over the first? Is he really saying that the hereditaries there now can stay as long as they are alive? The youngest hereditary is 38 years old, which means that we could have the hereditary principle for perhaps another 50 or 60 years. Will he give us some idea of what he sees as the timetable for switching to a fully elected, or 80 per cent. elected, House of Lords?

Jack Straw: Perhaps I did so rather too parenthetically, but I did add a coda to the effect that hereditary peers will be with us until they are taken from this mortal coil, or until Parliament passes legislation that transfers them out of the House.
	A great deal of detailed work, including the drafting of clauses, is now taking place to do what Parliament asked-that is, to introduce over three Parliaments a House of Lords that is mainly or wholly elected. Although the Labour party manifesto has not been drafted, I would be astonished if it was not our commitment to bring that into legislation early in the next Parliament. I hope that the party of the hon. Member for Cambridge shares that commitment.

David Howarth: indicated assent.

Jack Straw: The hon. Gentleman seems to nod assent. The Conservative party has signed up to the main propositions in the Green Paper, so I hope that its members can sign up to that one as well, including on the timing.

Mark Field: The Justice Secretary has rightly pointed out the temporary nature of these arrangements, but would it not have been useful to bring in the category of temporary peer? The Government of all the talents was a very unrewarding experience: peers were appointed specifically as Ministers, but after a year or so in the role they ended up disappearing back into the private sector with a seat for life in the legislature. That is a very unsatisfactory arrangement. Is this Bill not an opportunity to ensure that temporary peers appointed specifically as Ministers no longer have a place in the legislature once their term of ministerial office has ended?

Jack Straw: I am not opposed to that principle, and I do not guarantee what stand the Government will take when the matter comes up. Other suggestions to have been made include appointing people to the Lords for 10 or 15 years. The whole House-and I include the Government and myself in this-need to be open-minded about the matter.

Christopher Huhne: Will the Lord Chancellor give way?

Jack Straw: Of course I will, in one second. The Committee stage of the Bill will have quite a considerable time on the Floor of the House, so let us see what proposition comes through.

Christopher Huhne: Before the Lord Chancellor moves off the section of his speech dealing with the reform of Parliament, I want to talk about the dog that has not barked in this Bill-that is, the proposals for the recall of errant Members of this House, to which I think that the Prime Minister has signed up. Will the Lord Chancellor tell us something about his plans in that regard, and whether he intends to bring forward amendments in Committee that would fill that gap?

Jack Straw: We are not intending to introduce amendments to this Bill that would fill that gap, although we do intend to publish proposals about it. I think that everyone understands the need for electorates to have the right to recall errant Members if they are not dealt with properly in this or the other place. However, a general election has to take place before 3 June, so every Member of this House will be subject to recall within the next six months. As it happens, therefore, there is no urgency for this Parliament to make a decision on the matter. It is important that we get it right: I do not want a recall mechanism that means that hon. Members who are assiduous and hard working can be recalled because of a policy argument, or because they voted against capital punishment or abortion rights, for example.
	The experience in the United States varies. There is no recall mechanism for Members of Congress, nor for senators. There is a recall mechanism in some states of the Union. In some of those states, it is done for reasons; in others, it can be done without a reason. Although the recall mechanisms are rarely used, the threat of them can be very disruptive to the right of individuals to do as Edmund Burke said-to represent their electors and not to be their delegate.

Andrew Tyrie: Further to the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field), has the Lord Chancellor had a chance to look at the proposals that set out in some detail a term peerage approach-the paper that I wrote with the present shadow Leader of the House when he was a Back Bencher, my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young)? Does that have the Lord Chancellor's support, and might he be prepared to consider an amendment in Committee to enact some of those proposals?

Jack Straw: I have indeed read them. I think they were published by the University college London constitution unit. I do not wish to damage the hon. Gentleman's future career, but I thought they were rather good. I do not say that I agree with every part of them, but I am open-minded about the issue. I do not want to give a guarantee that we will accept amendments on it, because the usual processes of consulting in government have to take place, but I certainly wish to consider the proposals. I hope that is a reasonable undertaking.
	I shall make progress on other matters, as others wish to speak. Part 3 on the House of Lords includes measures to ensure that the House has a robust disciplinary regime to deal with misconduct, to ensure that peers can be suspended or expelled, which they currently cannot be. It provides that peers are to be disqualified from the House after a conviction for a serious criminal offence or being subject to a bankruptcy restrictions order. Currently it is an offence to the public that Members may have been convicted of a serious offence and may still be able to serve, which Members cannot do in this House. Part 3 also allows peers to resign and, if they wish to do so, to disclaim their peerage. I have already indicated that we intend to bring forward proposals for further reform.
	Part 4 deals with public order. The right to peaceful protest is an important liberty and an essential component of a healthy democracy. Following the statement from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in July 2007, we have been reviewing the law on protests around Parliament. Our starting point has been to remove unnecessary restrictions on the right of protest, with a presumption in favour of freedom of expression, balancing that with the requirement that Members should be able to gain access to the House freely, that their work should not be disrupted, and that the general public, who may not necessarily be taking part in demonstrations, should not have their rights disrupted.

Simon Burns: Although I fully appreciate that the Government are seeking to minimise any unnecessary restrictions on the right of peaceful protest, are the Government confident that by extending the ban to only 250 metres, that will allow proper and reasonable access to this building?

Jack Straw: I think that is the case, but I would not dream of saying that the distance should be 250 metres and not 350. It would be ridiculous if I were to do so. The House needs to consider the matter and I promise the hon. Gentleman that I will, too.

Andrew Dismore: I welcome the repeal of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 in so far as it applies to Parliament. That follows recommendations that my Committee has made on a number of occasions. The particular concern that I have is that the alternative arrangements are to be made by regulation. There is a non-exhaustive list of conditions in the schedule. Would my right hon. Friend consider an exhaustive list, and also consider putting the conditions on the face of the Bill to ensure that we have legal certainty in this difficult area of the law?

Jack Straw: Part 4 is very different from the provisions in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which are being repealed. It gives a senior police officer the power to impose certain conditions, and it amends the Public Order Act 1986. Those provisions in the 1986 Act and other, similar provisions are quite standard, and we must balance the right of demonstration with the need to ensure access and proper order. I see the hon. Member for this House-the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field)-in his place, and I hope that once the provision in the 2005 Act goes, we will be able to persuade Westminster city council to use its existing powers in byelaw to control noise.
	Nowhere else in the country would tolerate such megaphone disruption. Leaving aside what the protestor says, because I am not bothered about that, I must say that the current situation can be very disruptive for people in the building. It is terrible for the police officers and other staff on the gate. The relevant powers already exist to deal with the matter, so I hope that Westminster city council will use them rather more assiduously than it has up to now.

Mark Field: The Secretary of State will, I am sure, appreciate that there is an issue not simply for Westminster city council: advice is taken from the Metropolitan police, and there are elements in the vicinity to which the ambit and rule of the Mayor of London also applies. However, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman: I personally feel that there is a right to protest within the vicinity, but the incessancy and volume of the noise is intolerable for those who work here, and for the residential population, who do not live too far away. I agree with him, but I should not want to water down the notion that there is some right, within what is an important part of the British constitutional make-up, to protest here. We need a balance, but I do not disagree with the right hon. Gentleman's view that the balance has gone too far in one direction.

Jack Straw: May I just say, parenthetically, that I am one of the world's experts on the land ownership of Parliament square? When it was dug up in 1999 during the "Stop the City" demonstration, I was Home Secretary and the Met's police authority, and there were real problems about which part was owned by whom.

David Howarth: rose-

Simon Burns: rose-

Jack Straw: I shall give way just once, to the hon. Member for Cambridge, because I have already given way to the hon. Member for West Chelmsford.

David Howarth: I am rather worried by the Lord Chancellor's reply to the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore). The point about schedule 4 is that it provides extra powers over and above those about public order, and as far I can see, it provides them for the purpose only of
	"maintaining...access to and from the Palace of Westminster."
	The Lord Chancellor has, however, talked about using those provisions-not the more general ones, but those provisions-for more general public order purposes, and the schedule should not be interpreted that way.

Jack Straw: If I gave that impression, I did not mean to, because the schedule and its paving clauses exist to deal with access to and egress from Parliament.
	Let me go on to deal with-

Simon Burns: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jack Straw: No. Will the hon. Gentleman excuse me? I have already been speaking for almost 45 minutes, and I need to stop.
	Part 5 concerns human rights claims against the devolved Administrations in Northern Ireland and Wales. It has been introduced because the problem has been particularly acute in Scotland. Hon. Members will wonder why, therefore, Scotland is not mentioned in part 5, and that is because discussions are taking place with the Scottish Executive about the clauses, and relevant provisions will be brought forward in Committee.
	The issue arises from the Law Lords' judgment in Somerville  v. Scottish Ministers, which found that the one-year time limit for claims under the Human Rights Act 1998 did not read across to human rights claims brought under the Scotland Act 1998. The same applies to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and to the Government of Wales Act 1998. With some exceptions, about which I do not think anybody argues, we will correct that point. I know that the news has been greatly welcomed in Scotland.
	Part 6 deals with courts and tribunals, and it seeks to strengthen the independence of the judiciary and improve the appointments process.
	Part 7 has important proposals for strengthening the independence and the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General-and the National Audit Office-as well as in respect of his appointment.
	Part 8, which relates to the transparency of Government financial reporting to Parliament, refers to a point that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) about how Government spending is reported to Parliament. At present, the spending of some quangos and non-departmental public bodies, and certain other central Government bodies, is included in the budget of the parent department, but not in the estimates or resource accounts. That can make for complications and make it more difficult for Parliament to exert its control over Supply, which is one of its principal functions. Part 8 permits the Treasury to issue directions on how Government Departments prepare estimates. It provides for the consolidation of spending by NDPBs and other central Government bodies into Supply estimates and departmental resource accounts.

David Drew: Would not this proposal be more credible if we had the American system so that all Members who sit in this House also had to make financial declarations? That is standard practice in Congress and in the Senate. It is very important that this is not just about how Parliament reports itself but about how Members report their financial interests.

Jack Straw: If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I do not want to follow him down that route. We have to make declarations of financial interest anyway. If he is proposing that we should have to make declarations of wealth, I would say that that should perhaps be referred to a special Committee of the House. The Bill is quite comprehensive, but I think, if he does not mind, that we would find ourselves slightly diverted if we went down that route. However, I am happy to discuss it with him.
	The Bill also allows Welsh Ministers to include information relating to the use of resources by designated bodies in Wales.

Andrew Dismore: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Jack Straw: No, I am afraid that I must make progress.
	The Bill is before us at a time when it is perhaps more important than ever that we make every effort to restore trust in our constitutional settlement and in our political and parliamentary institutions. Building on the process of reform that this Government began in 1997, which  The Guardian newspaper heralded as revolutionary, the Bill will increase the accountability and legitimacy of British democracy and better ensure that power lies where it should-with Parliament and the people. I commend the Bill to the House.

Dominic Grieve: Let me begin by saying how much we welcome the fact that this Bill, for which we have been waiting for about two years, has finally arrived. I assure the House that we welcome many of its provisions, as the Lord Chancellor will have appreciated from the interventions that he received. I have to tell him, however, that its title rather belies the paucity of its content. I fear that it is unlikely to take its place as one of the great reforming Acts.
	A little over two years ago, the Prime Minister, in his first speech to this House in that role, made a statement that was intended to define his vision as Prime Minister. I remember it very well. He promised us
	"change in a spirit that takes us beyond parties and beyond partisanship...a new...constitutional settlement...a new relationship between citizens and Government",
	and it was to start immediately:
	"I can today make an immediate start".
	What happened? Let us have a look at the areas where he pledged that immediate start-12 areas where the Government would surrender or limit their powers:
	"the power of the Executive to declare war; the power to request the dissolution of Parliament; the power over recall of Parliament; the power of the Executive to ratify international treaties...the power to make key public appointments...the power to restrict parliamentary oversight of our intelligence services; power to choose bishops"
	and
	"judges; power to direct prosecutors in individual criminal cases; power over the civil service...and the Executive powers to determine the rules governing entitlement to passports and the granting of pardons."-[ Official Report, 3 July 2007; Vol. 462, c. 815.]
	According to my calculations, we are still waiting for the Government's proposals on war powers, dissolution, recall, the intelligence services, prosecutors, passports and pardons. Treaties, judges and the civil service are covered in the Bill.
	Having set out the 12 priorities for immediate action promised to us by the Prime Minister in his grandiloquent phrases, we find that only two-on bishops and quangos-have actually been implemented. Having seen the recent behaviour of the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families in respect of the Children's Commissioner, we can probably fairly say that it is only one and a quarter or one and a half.
	The Prime Minister went on, in what I am beginning to think was a moment of fantasy, to say that he had some big ideas. There were citizens juries-what happened to them? There was the statement of British values, which is the pet project of the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills). I understand that a roadshow is about to start to do with that, but all I can say is that it looks like it will be a very slow road. One by one, the Prime Minister's initiatives have fallen by the wayside-British day, a national motto, citizenship ceremonies for school leavers, rewriting the national anthem. It is amazing how extensive and far-reaching it all was.

Jack Straw: When did the Prime Minister talk about rewriting the national anthem?

Dominic Grieve: I remember that there was discussion, and I see that the Minister of State is talking to the Secretary of State about it. My distinct recollection is that there was talk about whether we might need a new national anthem that brought us all together.

Michael Wills: What is the source?

Dominic Grieve: I shall go away and check, and I will be quite prepared to admit it if I have got it wrong, but that is my recollection.

Michael Wills: I do not want to interrupt the flow of the hon. and learned Gentleman's speech, but he must root it in facts. First, he should give us the source for this thing about the national anthem. Secondly, as he well knows, it is not a roadshow that we are embarked on in relation to a statement of values but properly mediated, deliberative events, to which he was invited.  [Interruption.] Opposition Members may laugh, but such events are reputable and respected in the academic community and they are supported by all parties except the Conservative party. The hon. and learned Gentleman was invited to take part and refused. The events are under way, and he does not want to take part. That is a matter for him, but he should not accuse us of not doing something that we promised to do, because we are doing precisely what I have described.

Dominic Grieve: Yes, the Minister did invite me to take part. He rang me up and politely asked whether I would like to participate. I indicated that I did not wish to. He even asked me whether I would want to make a video clip that would be shown before the start of each roadshow explaining why people should not participate in it. I declined that politely, too. He then wrote me a rather extraordinary letter-I thought that our conversation was private at that time, not that I mind-setting out with considerable hysteria how dastardly of me it was not to wish to participate in the exercise. Be that as it may, I hope that he has an enjoyable time going around on this consultation process. It seems to me that if the number of his party's Back Benchers present this afternoon to consider this major piece of constitutional legislation is anything to go by, it does not have much mileage in it.
	Meanwhile, confidence in our democracy drains away. The Prime Minister, who promised that Parliament would be given a say on the calling of a election, chose to cancel one in an interview with Andrew Marr. Then he skulked off to a Portuguese anteroom to break his manifesto undertaking on the European constitution, in the vain hope that by signing it when everybody else had left the building, nobody would notice what he was doing.
	We then had a bizarre announcement, through the constitutional novelty of a YouTube video-I wondered at one stage whether that would be included in the Bill as a constitutional method of communication-that because some Members had broken the rules on parliamentary allowances, we could restore confidence by keeping the allowances and abolishing the rules. That idea did not last very long.
	We also had an Opposition politician arrested on the back of grossly exaggerated claims by the Cabinet Office, and a disgraceful and vile campaign against Members of this House orchestrated from within the Prime Minister's office by Mr. McBride. I look forward to ensuring that the code of conduct on special advisers means that that never happens again. It is worth remembering that that story was leaked to a friendly journalist in an attempt to minimise the damage, but even when the details of the smear campaign became public, the Prime Minister's first response was not that of the Secretary of State-to say that something had to be done about this awful thing-but to keep his special adviser in post and defend him. I think that that was something to do with the Prime Minister's moral compass.
	At every turn, therefore, there is a chasm between the Prime Minister's words and his actions. We have the National Democratic Renewal Council, but I am not sure what it does. Does it just sit and work out new headlines? One day the Prime Minister tells us that he will change the royal line of succession, but that is not in the Bill. He told the BBC that he is going to change the voting system, but that is not in the Bill either. Once the headline has been banked, it is left to the Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor to try to get him off the hook and kick most of the proposals into the long grass.
	If any of the announcements had been serious- [ Interruption. ] Of course I will give way to the Secretary of State.

Jack Straw: The whole of this is serious. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State will respond in detail to some of the hon. and learned Gentleman's points, but let us take, for example, the issue of war powers, which he mentioned. I was going to mention it in my speech, but as I had taken so many interventions and since it is not in the Bill, I decided not to do so. Just so the House can be informed-the hon. and learned Gentleman knows this very well-let me add that there was a serious debate in both Houses about whether provision on war powers, which everybody agrees ought to be exercised by this House, should be included in statute or would better be made by resolution. As it happens, I personally favoured putting the basic power in statute, although I was in a minority. Others took a different view, including the other place and the Committee of both Houses that examined the issue. It is therefore well known that we will deal with such matters by resolution. That measure is being drafted, and we aim to introduce it by the end of the year. What is wrong with that?

Dominic Grieve: I do not doubt the Secretary of State's sincerity. If I have been taking his comments in what I hope is a slightly light-hearted fashion, it is for the deliberate reason that we are a little way into the prime ministership of this Prime Minister, and it looks to me as if we are running out of time before the coming election for most of those extraordinary pledges to be implemented. When one looks at the promises that were made, in very specific terms, one is left with the impression that it was all just window dressing. That reflects very badly on how the Government conduct their business: it raises public expectations and they use grandiose phrases, but the mountain moves and out comes the mouse. That is all we have. The mouse may be beautiful and well formed, but a mouse it is nevertheless.

Jack Straw: May I totally refute what the hon. and learned Gentleman says? Any single proposal, particularly one that has broad support and that is therefore not the subject of intense controversy, can be dismissed as prosaic, but the total adds up to something really significant.
	The hon. and learned Gentleman cannot have it both ways. After my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made his announcement, we did not introduce legislation and try to bounce it through the House, as we could have done within the first 12 months of his Administration. Instead, we set up a deliberative process which, above all, involved consulting the House and the other place. Not one or two but three separate Select Committees, including Joint Select Committees, have considered the matter, and I pay tribute to everybody in both Houses who did so. It is true that some time has elapsed, but the proposals in the Bill are better for it, and there is much more widespread agreement. That is the main reason why the Benches on both sides of the House are not packed-people believe that there is consensus across the Houses on the measure.

Dominic Grieve: I thank the Secretary of State. In tribute to him, it seems that he has injected a note of reality into the fantasy world that was being manufactured two years ago. Of course, some of those other measures may be in the Labour party manifesto for the next election, but that is not to say that that will not also be fantasy.
	I do not want to take up too much of the House's time, so in respect in constitutional renewal, I simply make this point: I notice that the long title of the Bill omits the words "and for connected purposes". If I were a suspicious individual, I would think that the Justice Secretary had done that to prevent hon. Members from tabling amendments on wider constitutional issues. I am sure that he will tell me that I am completely wrong about that. Perhaps it was thought unnecessary given that, in the words of the constitutional expert Robert Hazell, the Bill is more a constitutional reform (miscellaneous provisions) Bill. That is where the whole thing has gone off the rails.
	I shall highlight the measures that we support. They include the measures that would put the civil service on a statutory basis, although I agree with the Joint Committee that that would have been better dealt with in a short, stand-alone civil service Bill. We will consider how the proposals can be improved, especially in adding a duty to manage taxpayers' money to the civil service's core values.

David Blunkett: The hon. and learned Gentleman is making an entertaining speech, but it is short on the substance of what the Opposition actually believe in. In regard to the civil service and the renewal of commitments in the Bill, are he and his party definitely committed to the neutrality of the civil service?

Dominic Grieve: Of course we are. I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that anxieties over the extent to which the neutrality of the civil service has been eroded over the past 13 years have been a persistent theme in this House for those of us participating in debates. That has centred on several issues, including what happened in the run-up to the Iraq war and the way in which dossiers prepared by civil servants for impartial distribution to this House appeared to have been tinkered with under political pressure. I could cite a large number of other examples.

David Blunkett: Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman would reflect on the enthusiasm that the Opposition have for deliberate and, in some cases, encouraged leaks from the civil service.

Dominic Grieve: My impression is that the basic cause of leaks from the civil service has been the breakdown in trust between civil servants and Ministers about the accuracy of what Ministers say. It is apparent if one looks at how the civil service has operated for at least 100 years that Ministers took the rap for things that went wrong in their Departments-something that seems to have vanished almost entirely, as civil servants are hung out to dry while Ministers stay in office. That has probably had a very deleterious impact on civil service morale.
	On several occasions, including some under the right hon. Gentleman's stewardship of the Home Office, civil servants have leaked information that diametrically challenged utterances by Ministers, who had been putting out material that was thoroughly misleading. Indeed, in some cases, ministerial careers have been ended on the back of that phenomenon.

David Blunkett: The hon. Gentleman has really started to dig himself a hole. Can he name one such occurrence while I was Home Secretary?

Dominic Grieve: Well now, I have to be careful, because I admit that my memory may be at fault as to whether some of these incidents took place under the right hon. Gentleman's stewardship or that of his successor, and to that extent I am prepared for him to correct me. I seem to recollect the case of a civil servant based in Romania, who provided information about the way in which visas were being distributed that directly challenged what was said by Ministers in this House. That was a serious example of Ministers thoroughly misleading the public about what was going on.

David Blunkett: The hon. Gentleman is right that that did happen in early 2004, and the Minister responsible resigned, even though the mistake was made by civil servants in the Department and another Department, not by her personally. He has underlined entirely the point that I was seeking to make. Ministers do not only take the rap, they take it for mistakes made by their own civil servants.

Dominic Grieve: The right hon. Gentleman is correct to say that the Minister resigned, but it took rather a lot of doing on the part of Opposition Members-and indeed Labour Members-to persuade her to do so. [Interruption.] One of my hon. Friends says from a sedentary position, "Kicking and screaming." That is what I, too, recall about the incident.

Andrew Dismore: Earlier, I made an intervention about nationality discrimination rules within the civil service. If new clauses were to be introduced, would the Conservative party support them in principle, bearing in mind that it has adopted that position in relation to my many attempts, made through private Members' legislation, to deal with the matter?

Dominic Grieve: I see no reason why we would not adopt an approach similar to that which we have taken previously. I have not considered that exact point, and I would need to look at the hon. Gentleman's amendments, but he might recall that-this is my recollection-we made a distinction between civil service roles that clearly require a nationality qualification, because they are sufficiently high-ranking or linked to security or defence, and those that do not. That seems to be a sensible way to proceed, and I look forward to seeing his amendments in due course.

Tony Wright: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Dominic Grieve: I ought to make some progress, but I shall give way once more before moving on.

Tony Wright: I seek some clarity about the theme raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett). The hon. and learned Gentleman will know that there is much alarm in Whitehall about some of the utterances from Conservative Front-Bench Members about their intentions for the civil service. In particular, it is believed that people are being told that business people will be imported, through political appointments, to give orders to civil servants. Will he say categorically that that is not the case?

Dominic Grieve: That is complete rubbish. The hon. Gentleman should be wary about listening to all the copy churned out by propaganda departments-in his own party, I suspect. His suggestion is ludicrous. In view of my earlier answer about the politicisation of the civil service, I hope that our proposals for the civil service will include ensuring its impartiality. Putting it under political direction or outside control clearly cannot achieve that.
	On transparency, the Bill proposes only to reform Supply estimates. We think that there needs to be a fundamental shift in the transparency of government, and at our party conference we outlined a number of proposals to increase openness, including publishing online the salaries of the 35,000 most senior civil servants, job descriptions for quangos, and all central Government expenditure over £25,000. We would like the Bill to include such measures, and will return to them in Committee.
	We support measures to require the consent of Parliament before the ratification of treaties, but I am concerned about provisions in the Bill that would allow the Government to avoid the new scrutiny requirements in undefined, exceptional circumstances. We will need some clarification of what those exceptional circumstances, which are so neatly tucked into the Bill, amount to. It is troubling that the Bill does not cover treaties that do not require formal ratification, other forms of international agreements such as memorandums of understanding, or even such things as prisoner transfer agreements. Although there might be arguments for that, I hope that in Committee we have an opportunity to consider carefully where the boundaries are drawn. Otherwise there might be much disappointment that many things that this House ought to be considering are not being considered.
	The Government were elected on a false prospectus: they promised to put the Lisbon treaty to the British people.

Jack Straw: We did not.

Dominic Grieve: I remember distinctly the Government telling us that they would put the Lisbon treaty to the British people.

Michael Wills: It's your memory.

Dominic Grieve: I get ever more worried that we are moving into an Orwellian phase. I remember it as a distinct election pledge. Again, however, if the Secretary of State would like to write to me explaining why my suggestion-that that promise was made during the last election-is inaccurate, I will be only too happy to read the letter.
	We support the repeal of restrictions on protests around Parliament. The right to protest is a fundamental part of our democracy, but that right needs to be balanced against the need to ensure that hon. Members, parliamentary staff, and above all the public, have access to this place. It is right, therefore, that the Bill ensures that protests can be regulated.

Jack Straw: rose-

Dominic Grieve: We are going back to the treaty. I am delighted to give way.

Jack Straw: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman, because I did not think that my memory was playing tricks. We said in the manifesto-[Hon. Members: "Here we go!"] Well, I am reading it, in the interests of greater accuracy. After stating what the constitutional treaty will ensure, the manifesto reads:
	"We will put it to the British people in a referendum and campaign...for a 'Yes' vote".
	The Conservative party is trying to say otherwise, but there is a world of difference between that constitutional treaty, which hit the dust, and the Lisbon treaty. That latter is simply an amending treaty to existing treaties, and no different in character from Maastricht or its predecessors, which the Opposition never put to the British people when they were in power.

Dominic Grieve: I am sorry, but that piece of casuistry takes some beating- [Interruption.] It was casuistry! First, I remember the Government telling us, when those utterances were made, that the constitutional treaty was no more than another Maastricht. In fact, as the Secretary of State well knows, the Lisbon treaty is, in almost all its particulars, identical to the constitutional treaty abandoned after the French referendum. For those reasons, the public know very well that they were given a promise and that it was reneged upon. That highlights the difficulty with such legislation. How can people have any confidence that procedures of any sort will not be abused by Ministers who break fundamental pledges that appear to be made in manifestos?

David Drew: For clarity, will the hon. and learned Gentleman commit his Front-Bench colleagues to a referendum on the Lisbon treaty?

Dominic Grieve: We have made it absolutely clear that if there is an opportunity to have a referendum on the Lisbon treaty before ratification, we will do it. The Government promised to have a referendum on the Lisbon treaty not after, but before ratification. I hope very much that we can honour the pledge that the Government will have broken.
	We support measures to remove the Prime Minister from the process of appointing judges, and magistrates from the very complex processes of the Judicial Appointments Commission. That seems to be a step in the right direction. I also say to the Secretary of State that I look forward to the review of the operation of the commission, and whether a simplified process could be provided. I listened very carefully to what he had to say about that. As I think he knows, he will have our interest and co-operation-in so far as we can clearly maintain judicial independence-if there are ways of improving the existing system.
	We support measures to reform the National Audit Office and to amend Government accounts. However, with the Prime Minister's once golden rules not just broken but shattered, surely the real problem lies not in disjunctions between departmental expenditure limits and resource accounts, but goes much deeper; it is one of fiscal credibility. That is why we propose an independent office of budgetary oversight to oversee compliance in connection with the Government's economic promises.
	Then we come to the House of Lords. Just to make our position clear-yet again-the Conservative party supports the creation of a predominantly elected House of Lords. But there is nothing about that in the Bill. It contains two measures that will fundamentally change the nature of the House of Lords, without making it one ounce more democratic. First, the Justice Secretary wants to remove the remaining hereditary peers. The Government agreed to the retention of the hereditaries as a mark of their good faith-good faith creeps into consideration of the Bill quite a lot-that further reform to put the House of Lords on a democratic footing would follow. It was said at the time that if those hereditary peers went, real reform would never happen-and it has not. As the late Member for Livingston, Robin Cook, said, all that has been achieved so far is to replace a 15th-century principle of hereditary peers with an 18th-century principle of patronage.
	The Justice Secretary has made democratic reform of the House of Lords a fourth-term issue-something else for Labour's manifesto. He promises a Bill on the House of Lords, which he says is imminent, so why is he trying to remove the remaining hereditaries in today's Bill, before that Bill is published?

Alan Beith: I wonder whether the hon. and learned Gentleman could clarify the confusing Conservative position on that point. There are increasing indications that if there was a Conservative Government, people would be appointed to the House of Lords so that they could become Ministers, albeit perhaps temporarily, as suggested by the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie). Why is that step being resorted to if the Conservatives' clear intention is to legislate immediately on reform of the House of Lords? I suspect that it is not their intention.

Dominic Grieve: Taking the cue from the Secretary of State, on a point that I thought was one of his more valid ones, let me say to the right hon. Gentleman that Parliament does not legislate in a day.

David Howarth: Yes it does.

Dominic Grieve: Well, Parliament can legislate in a day; the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to pick me up on that. How many times have we legislated in a day, and always regretted it bitterly afterwards? We have usually regretted it most bitterly when we have all agreed on something. I still remember a dreadful piece of legislation that we passed after the Omagh bombing; fortunately I was able to get leave of absence to disappear and not support my party. That was a dreadful piece of legislation, but everybody signed up to it and it went through in one day. However, wisdom suggests that we should not legislate in a day.
	Reality also says that were we to be elected to government, we would have considerable problems in respect of our representation in the House of Lords, as would other parties, because of the age profile of our party's membership and because of the paucity of appointments that have been made available to us over recent years. Those are factors that we cannot ignore. For those reasons we would have to make the House of Lords operate. I hope that that answers the question asked by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith).

Jack Straw: Let me press the hon. and learned Gentleman on the right hon. Gentleman's point. All three parties are signed up to reform of the House of Lords, to put it on a wholly or mainly elected basis. The hon. and learned Gentleman just repeated that pledge. Will it be a pledge that any future Conservative Administration would implement in their first term, bearing in mind that the legislation would be pretty straightforward? [Hon. Members: "You're on your fourth."] What we have achieved since February 2007 is a clear consensus and lots of complicated detail, which were not there before. Now that the hon. and learned Gentleman has the template, will he implement it?

Dominic Grieve: We have made our commitment and made it quite clear. The order in which we decide to prioritise legislation if we win an election is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, particularly in view of the economic mess that we are going to inherit. Yet again, the Secretary of State is descending into a series of nitpicking issues-

Jack Straw: indicated dissent.

Dominic Grieve: If I may say so, it is nitpicking, particularly coming from the Secretary of State, given the Government's consistent pledge over a long period to get rid of the existing House of Lords and complete its reform, and their not having completed it, or even started its completion. I am prepared to take lessons from some quarters, but on this issue I am not prepared to take them from the Secretary of State.
	Of course the remaining hereditaries are an anomaly, and of course they are undemocratic. I accept all that, but they are no less democratic than the appointees who will replace them. Furthermore, why are there measures in the Bill to allow peers to resign or retire? Are those measures intended for the reformed House or are they supposed to cover the transitional House, or are they for the halfway house that we have at the moment?
	Remove the anomaly-that is, the hereditaries-and the prospect of reform will recede. Only last year, the Prime Minister said that there would be no by-elections among hereditary peers during the transition to the fully reformed second Chamber, but that transition has not yet begun. Only last year, he said that he would avoid gratuitously cutting the Conservative party's representation in the House of Lords, but now that stance is being reversed. As I have explained, although Conservatives are only the third largest grouping in the House of Lords, more hereditaries are Conservative than belong to any other party.
	The Prime Minister's naked partisanship in those utterances is laid bare for everyone to see. The proposals are not about making the upper House more democratic or more representative, but about shifting the party balance still further in favour of the governing party. Frankly, that is a pretty dangerous and unwelcome precedent, but one that ties in with the entire way in which the Prime Minister has treated Opposition parties over the House of Lords since he took office.
	This is a question of trust. The Secretary of State's predecessor Lord Irvine made a promise-I remind him of this, as he referred to Lord Salisbury and all those great moments in the first Parliament after 1997. What did Lord Irvine say? He talked about
	"a compromise...between Privy Councillors on Privy Council terms and binding in honour on all those who have come to give it their assent."-[ Official Report, House of Lords, 30 March 1999; Vol. 599, c. 207.]
	One of the people who participated in that assenting process, as it were, was the Secretary of State for Justice. He was one of the Privy Counsellors who gave his assent to that compromise, and so was the Prime Minister.
	The Prime Minister has broken his promise on the Lisbon treaty and now I think that he proposes to break another promise. I therefore ask the Secretary of State again: why should we see the proposals as a way of restoring public trust in the political system? I want proper reform, but the relevant clauses make this less likely, not more likely. For that reason, we will oppose the measure to prevent hereditary peers from being elected.
	I do not want to see life peers in this House either. The Secretary of State is right that under the Peerage Act 1963, peers who swiftly choose to forgo a hereditary peerage should be free to stand for election to this House, just as it is right that peers who were removed in 1999 should now be free to seek election here. If Parliament allows the House of Lords to expel Members for misconduct, they too should be free to argue their case in public and, indeed, stand for election to this House, because their peerages will effectively have been removed.
	However, the position is very different for those who have chosen to accept a life peerage in the full understanding that they will forgo the opportunity of standing for, or for that matter returning to, the House of Commons. In a reformed House of Lords, that would lead to that House becoming a stepping stone to a career as an MP-and in an unreformed House, it would put the Prime Minister in charge of that stepping stone and vastly increase his patronage. That step would turn the House of Lords into the departure lounge for special advisers.
	Yet again the Justice Secretary, who as I recollect went from arch-Blairite to the present Prime Minister's campaign manager, finds that the tectonic plates are shifting, when suddenly such proposals come up. I suspect that whichever way he looks is uncomfortable: one way lies Foy in the county of Herefordshire and the other way Hartlepool in the county of Durham. So let me make it easier for him. We will table an amendment to give effect to the Government's policy on the issue. I look forward to the Secretary of State, and perhaps even the Minister of State, joining us in the Lobby on that.
	In his White Paper last year, the Justice Secretary proposed a cooling-off period of five years between someone ceasing their membership of the second Chamber and their being eligible for election to the House of Commons. That would prevent membership of the second Chamber from being used as an immediate launch pad for a career as an MP. We support the Justice Secretary's policy on that, although his Cabinet colleagues do not seem to be very enthusiastic.
	There is much in the Bill that we can support, but what we have is trimmings and not very much meat. What is missing is genuine constitutional reform and the transfer of power to the people, so let me make some suggestions of what the Justice Secretary should add to the Bill. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has laid out a series of proposals that would really change the relationship between citizen and state. If the Justice Secretary is serious, he will follow our lead and introduce citizens' initiatives and a right for local residents to veto excessive council tax rises, allow 100,000 voters to demand a debate in this place on any issue, let 1 million citizens table legislation in Parliament, and introduce a public reading stage for Bills.
	The Justice Secretary could follow our lead and let local communities elect police commissioners or give voters the right to recall their MP where serious misconduct has taken place, regardless of any penalty imposed in the House. If he really wants to improve the audit of Government accounts, he might like to start by publishing every item of Government spending over £25,000. He would be amazed at the number of people who would spend hours trawling through those accounts to supply their MPs with ammunition with which to ask questions. And if he is serious about public engagement, will he follow our lead and ensure that any treaty to increase the powers of the European Union will be subject to that referendum?
	The British public have had plenty of broken promises from this Government. They certainly want reform. The evidence from opinion polling shows that this place is held in very poor estimation generally, and that there is a deep desire to see our legislature function properly and for confidence in the way in which government is conducted to be restored. We will give the Bill its Second Reading, but if the Secretary of State thinks that these measures alone will restore that trust, I have to say to him that he is deluded. That is not something that I would ever say of him, however, because I think that he knows the reality very well. He knows that, at the moment, our political system is broken up, and that this Bill does not begin to scratch the surface of the change required-because I am afraid that the Prime Minister will not let him do that.

Tony Wright: I was interested to hear my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State begin his speech by telling us that Her Majesty was pleased to allow the House to consider the prerogative powers, as it will do in parts of the Bill. I was interested, too, to see that just a few days ago, the Government issued a paper called "Review of the executive royal prerogative powers: final report". The Select Committee that I chair asked for that report in 2004, and it is good at last to have a comprehensive account of what we think those prerogative powers are. It gives us an agenda for much work. At the end of that interesting paper, we find this sentence:
	"Our constitution has developed organically over many centuries and change should not be proposed for change's sake."
	That sentiment is often echoed throughout our political tradition across the House, but we have only to say it to ask ourselves whether it is true.
	It is certainly true that, for the past three centuries or so, we have not had what we might call a great constitutional moment. We have not had a moment when we have had to consider what kind of system of government we would like. We have been spared the kind of revolutionary moment, or moment of foreign occupation, that necessitates constitutional moments in which that process has to take place. So, as is often observed, we have more or less muddled along, making it up as we go along. We have taken what is sometimes called a back-of-an-envelope approach to constitutional matters.
	I am not sure, however, that the process has been quite as organic as that sentence in the report suggests. We have had some pretty inorganic moments, too. I do not think that the vote to get suffrage for working men was an organic moment. That involved a pretty titanic struggle against the people who said that our constitutional system would collapse if we went down that route. I do not think that the struggle to extend the franchise to women was an organic moment, given that people said that our constitutional system would collapse if we did anything so dangerous. Nor do I think that the struggle against the House of Lords to assert the supremacy of this House at the beginning of the 20th century was an organic moment. That involved a pretty vigorous constitutional struggle to assert a new primacy in our political system. So we should not get too carried away with the idea of an untroubled organic process. There are moments when we have to do things that change the balance of the system, and that usually requires significant political action.
	I am not going to claim for an instant that this Bill represents such a moment. Seen from a broader perspective and taken in the round, however, the measures that the Government have taken since 1997 represent an extremely important constitutional moment. I am not going to recite them-my right hon. Friend mentioned most of them-but there is no doubt that, over this period, something very important has happened to our established constitutional arrangements. I do not think that that has been part of a grand plan, or that there has necessarily been a consistent sense of direction, but there have been some important achievements.
	The reason we are having all the troubles with our expenses at the moment is that we introduced a Freedom of Information Act. As long as we had no such provision, we thought that we could do things in secret. The introduction of the Act has had a transforming effect on our whole political culture, and, indeed, on the way we do business in this House. Some might say, "That is not a very good thing; look at the consequences." Had we had such legislation in place, however, the trouble that we are now in would never have happened. If we had had the complete transparency over our expenses that freedom of information brings, and if we had known that we had to submit our expenses to the scrutiny of our electors and everyone else, the difficulties and abuses that we have seen would not have taken place.
	In area after area, we can see how these important changes have altered the way in which government is organised in this country, and the way in which we do politics. There will be a lasting imprint from this period. People will look back on it as a moment of significant constitutional change. The implications of the Human Rights Act 1998, for example, are transforming-so transforming, in fact, that the Opposition would like us to have another one. Indeed, perhaps the Government would, too.
	The most remarkable thing about all this constitutional reform is how it has become accepted and settled-even provisions that were strongly contested at the time. I remember John Major, when he was Prime Minister, predicting that the House would come down if we moved in the direction of serious devolution. It was a political necessity, however; the system had to respond to the pressures, particularly from Scotland. This has changed the way in which we do politics.
	It is remarkable that no one now seriously wants to undo what has been done. No one is queuing up to say, "Let's sweep away the Freedom of Information Act", "Let's sweep away devolution", or "Let's sweep away the independence of our national statistics." All these things are now an accepted part of our political arrangements, and they are all for the good. Not even the Conservative party, in its more esoteric moments, has suggested that any of these measures should be unravelled. We should therefore at least mark the fact that, although the Bill itself might not be momentous or represent our great constitutional moment, it forms part of a significant constitutional journey over the past 12 years.

Kelvin Hopkins: Yet again, my hon. Friend is making an intelligent, interesting speech, and everything that he says is absolutely right. However, the key development in recent decades-not just under this Labour Government-has been an intensification of power at the centre, relative to the legislature. That is what is wrong with our politics, and that is what we have to change. The Bill ought to be addressing that, and I hope that he will say something about it.

Tony Wright: My hon. Friend tempts me to go wider than I am already going, and I think that I am going quite wide enough. Some little plans are being hatched to do something else about the balance between Parliament and the Executive, however, and I hope to be able to say more about them in the near future.
	Against that background, I want to extend a particular welcome for what I take to be the central part of the Bill. It is an issue that I have been engaged with for as long as I can remember-probably too long-which is to try to put the civil service on a statutory basis. The Committee that I chair produced its own Bill to do so in 2004. I think that was the first time in the modern period that a Select Committee has produced its own Bill. We did so because we had become frustrated by our inability to make progress on the issue. It was something that had been much promised, but never delivered.
	Everyone had accepted the arguments for putting the civil service on a statutory basis. They grew out of Northcote-Trevelyan and it was viewed as an anomaly that this had not already happened. Northcote-Trevelyan had suggested that we needed only a few clauses to do it, but those few clauses never seemed to be put in place. I read my way through all the debates on the issue under the last Conservative Government, when the old Treasury and Civil Service Committee used to recommend that this should be done. The argument then was, "Well, we think this may be a good idea in principle, but we have worries about doing it." Some of those worries were very proper ones: it was said that the change should not be done in a way that would become a source of controversy between the parties and that it should be done only if political consensus could be gained. It was in the same spirit that the civil service itself approached these issues. It wanted this done, but it wanted an assurance that it would be done in a spirit of political consensus.
	I take some pleasure in the fact that, after all this time, we have now reached a point where this can safely be done for the civil service. We can safely do it on the basis of genuine consensus across the parties. What we are doing is something that everyone understands we ought to do, which is to try to define what we think the core values of our civil service are and to put them into statute, as we have done with other things. Secondly, we need to put into statute the core institutional machinery necessary to ensure that those values are delivered. That is the key point about the Civil Service Commission.
	This may not seem to be an exciting moment-indeed, it may seem a prosaic moment in the scheme of things-but it is constitutionally an extremely important moment. I very much want this Government to have this reform as one item on the long list of actions they have taken to change the operation of government in this country. With a bit of luck and a fair wind, they will achieve that. That is my main welcome for the Bill.
	Let me share another rather general thought, which is that I do not know whether we are approaching a time that could be described as a serious constitutional moment-one in which we want to examine in a more fundamental way how we are governed-but I doubt whether we can go on for ever simply making it up as we go along. I shall not resort to the cliché that every disaster is an opportunity, but there is perhaps a moment that arises out of the catastrophe that has overwhelmed this institution of Parliament, which has got people to begin to think, talk and discuss how they want to be governed-whether they are governed in a satisfactory way and whether it can be improved. Such a discussion is happening on a number of fronts.
	Shortly after I entered the House, I remember trying to introduce a Bill on fixed-term Parliaments, but I could not get a hearing for that proposition. Another prerogative power was involved; I recall being much taken by the fact that I had to write to the Palace to get permission to introduce a ten-minute Bill on fixed-term Parliaments. Now, however, it is becoming accepted that it is right to move in the direction of having fixed-term Parliaments. It is increasingly viewed as absurd that nearly every other Parliament operates to some fixed cycle, but our Parliament does not.
	The argument that we need to examine our electoral system is being heard with greater force now-and not necessarily for the old reasons. Arguments about strict proportionality or the mathematics of voting are less relevant; the important thing now is that the electorate has changed. The first-past-the-post system, with all its rough edges, did not matter very much when, on the whole, there were defined blocks in the electorate that delivered their votes for parties and took their turn now and again. The electorate is not like that now; it is far more differentiated and variegated. Governments may be elected now on the basis of a very small minority of the vote and yet enjoy all the power that is accorded to Governments in this country. At some point, we have simply got to address that issue because when our circumstances change, we have to revisit our arrangements.
	Beyond all that, I hear a developing argument these days that asks whether we need to revisit some of the fundamentals of our governing arrangements. There is far more interest now in whether we should begin to separate out more clearly the Executive functions from the legislative ones. It was interesting to see recently that a former Cabinet Secretary, Lord Turnbull, had written an article in the Financial Times advocating the separation of powers as the only way he thought we could get the skills that we needed into government and also provide the sort of parliamentary scrutiny that was needed. The fusion of power in our system is damaging on the one side, but also damaging on the other side.
	It is interesting to see that even Prime Ministers nowadays want to push out the boundaries by bringing more people in from outside. We have heard in exchanges this afternoon about proposals to bring people into government who may not have to be members of either House of Parliament or even to be elected. It is suggested that such people can come and be Ministers for a while. It may be a good idea. The Committee I chair is looking at some of these proposals at the moment, but if we go down that route, we have to think it through. If we are changing the nature of the Executive, we may want to change the nature of Parliament, including its scrutiny function. The principle should be that strong Government, which is what we all say we have had in this country-and in many respects, we have-has to be matched by strong accountability, but we have not seen that.
	My conclusion from all this is that interesting discussion and argument is going on about the very nature of our system of government. My view is that we need some mechanism to carry all this forward. When the Government came to power in 1997, instead of simply working through our shopping list of reforms, we should have had something like a constitutional commission, which could have looked at all the parts of the argument in the round, ensuring that one bit was consistent with another, while also providing a reservoir of expertise on constitutional matters. It could even have engaged the public-an issue I feel even more strongly about now.
	It is no good simply having discussions or putting forward ideas about how the system could change; if we are approaching a constitutional moment, we must have a mechanism to carry it forward that engages the public, too. I would favour something like a democracy commission. I know that we are busy abolishing every body in sight at the moment, but we need a place in our system-other countries have it-where we can think about the nature of our governing arrangements on a continuing basis. If we find ourselves arriving at a moment when we will have to make some big constitutional choices, we would then have some means of doing so.

David Howarth: I agree with the vast majority of what the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) has just said-except for one thing. I think that we are already in a constitutional moment and that the current crisis is very serious, requiring a better reaction now than this Bill. I am afraid that it is inadequate to the present circumstances. There is nothing in it specifically bad or obnoxious, but nearly all of it needs improvement-some of it radically. What is really wrong with the Bill, however, is what it does not do and its lack of ambition, given the size of the problem. As the hon. Member for Cannock Chase pointed out, it does nothing to change the system of election to the House of Commons, which is not just corrupt and unfair but, as the hon. Gentleman began to explain, politically disastrous. It fails to get rid of the undemocratic absurdity of a wholly unelected second Chamber-a House of patronage-and, as the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) said in an intervention, it fails to do anything about the extreme centralisation of power in this country, which still remains after the devolution settlement. It fails to do anything to prevent big money control of our politics, and it even fails to remove the possibility of political interference in the criminal justice system.
	There is a real crisis in British politics, but although all of us in the House know about it on a personal level, we do very little about it. It is a crisis of confidence in politics that threatens the cultural basis of democracy itself. Extremist parties are attracting support, and cynicism about politics and the people in politics is rife. I believe that confidence in Members of the House of Commons is now down to 14 per cent. The media are the only real political power in the land, but the media's own commercial difficulties mean that they use that power for increasingly shallow populist ends.
	Over the past few weeks, I have been wondering whether the position is even worse than that. We live in a society that is obsessed with celebrity, and what we now see is the growth of an expectation that politics is, or should become, a kind of celebrity activity. We are seeing celebrity candidates for public office, not only in the United States but here. We are seeing TV celebrities elevated to ministerial office and places in the House of Lords. We are seeing political innovations, proposed or already in place, which, while they may appear superficially attractive, are in danger of turning into concessions to celebrity politics. Primaries, I believe, involve that danger; leaders' debates involve that danger; and elected mayors involve that danger-although I should perhaps add that the newly elected mayor of Bedford won his place without being a celebrity.
	The serious question is, are we allowing a new system of government to develop out of the constitutional moment in which we find ourselves? Does the system that we are allowing constitute a kind of rule by the famous? The new system needs a name, and were we to give it a name it would be not a democracy but a doxocracy: the rule of celebrity. A new and urgent constitutional question about which the Bill does nothing is what we should do about that form of politics. One view is that we should simply go with the flow, give in to the celebrity politics that is developing and institutionalise its elements, such as primaries; but I believe that that will not end well. The sheer superficiality of celebrity politics will lead in the end not to greater engagement as its proposers hope, but to disappointment and to even more cynicism.

David Drew: I am sure that, like me, the hon. Gentleman regularly visits schools, and that, like me, he is pleasantly surprised at how interested young people are in politics-not party politics, perhaps, but issue-based politics. What they always tell me is that they have a thirst for knowledge: they want to know more about what we do in Parliament, and about what Government do. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is where we fail absolutely in this country? We have not engaged in real citizenship education at all.

David Howarth: I do agree, but that is a consequence of the great boundary that we have developed between people in politics and people not in politics. I believe that the position will become worse if we follow the celebrity politics route, along with the assumption that being in politics means having to be a different kind of person from everyone else.
	The hon. Member for Cannock Chase mentioned the expenses crisis. I think that we need to mention it, but one of the aspects of it that strike me as dangerous is that, just as celebrities in show business are expected to have some kind of physical perfection, political leaders are now increasingly expected to have moral perfection, and that is simply impossible. We are not gods; we are only people. In both forms of celebrity, we have developed a form of airbrushing. Photographs of celebrities are airbrushed, and before freedom of information we airbrushed what we were doing here. Exposure of that has, I believe, been fundamentally damaging. The alternative approach is to reject the whole idea rather than going along with it, and to aim to tear down the barrier that I see developing between politics and people outside politics. That is a difficult route, however, because it is one that the media would automatically oppose.

Jack Straw: I am following the hon. Gentleman's interesting speech carefully. I do not think that he meant that the exposure of expenses itself had been damaging. It is what has been exposed that has been damaging. I share, as I am sure he does, the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) that, although this has been a very difficult period, we could not go on as we were.

David Howarth: I thank the Secretary of State for correcting me. What I meant was that we had been airbrushing the situation and that that had been exposed, quite rightly. We should not have been airbrushing it along the way.
	What we need to do is think about how to persuade more people to participate in politics in order to break down the barrier-not just in the sense of having their views heard, although that is very important, but in the full sense of having responsibility for decisions and taking part in them. That means a decentralisation of power far more radical than what we have taken on so far. It also means putting barriers in the way of those who wish to control politics through money, which is incompatible with a democracy in which many people take part on an equal basis; and yes, it does mean representative bodies that reflect the political views of the people who are represented. The Bill does not address that either.
	The hon. Member for Cannock Chase was right to mention electoral reform, which is central to change in politics and, in particular, to the changing relationship between people in politics and people outside politics. A House of Commons that simply does not reflect the political views of the population will never command much respect. We have involved ourselves in the idea that the only purpose of a general election is to choose a Government. According to current doctrine, a general election is not about reflecting the political views of the public. The trouble with that view is that it loses all credibility when the winning party wins barely over a third of the votes. When the supporters of the Government are outnumbered by nearly two to one, it is not surprising that the Government are unpopular from the day on which they take office, remain unpopular after that, and are seen by the population as being alien to their own political views. We have to move away from the present system.
	It is said that first past the post at least allows us to get rid of the rascals, but there is a fundamental problem with that. It allows us to get rid of an individual rascal, but only by voting for a party with which we may fundamentally disagree. The cry "Throw the rascals out" therefore cannot work simultaneously for individuals and for parties. The system fails because it is trying to do too much at once.
	We also need to get rid of the idea of safe seats, because it is safe seats that lead us down the path to iniquity. We need competition, but we need a system that allows competition and allows the number of safe seats to be reduced, but does not allow us to give up the idea of the proportionality of the entire electoral system to public views. There is such a system: the single transferable vote multi-Member seat system. It puts power in the hands of voters, not party machines. Interestingly, in Ireland 40 per cent. of Teachda Dalas who lose their seats lose them not to members of other parties but to members of their own party. The whole point of that system is that it is possible to throw out individual rascals while retaining general proportionality and support for parties.

Ronnie Campbell: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that there should not be a constituency element to the role of a Member of Parliament?

David Howarth: The STV system retains the constituency element; it just has larger constituencies. They would be about the same size as American congressional districts, or perhaps even a little smaller.

Jack Straw: Does the hon. Gentleman think that the Irish system of proportional representation has produced better government-better economic management and less corruption-than in the United Kingdom?

David Howarth: Until very recently it has certainly produced better economic management. As for the recent catastrophes, as someone once said, it is not a good idea to decide precedence between a louse and a flea.

Jack Straw: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Howarth: I do not think it is a good idea to discuss this in detail now as the jury is still out.  [Interruption.] Yes, the Speaker of the Dail is probably not the best person to talk about in these circumstances.
	It is noteworthy that in the Bill the Government have completely ignored all the problems to which I refer and fail to engage in the debate. The Government's own proposals on reform of the electoral system of the Commons are mysteriously absent from the Bill. There was a proposal, which the Secretary of State has discussed, for the possibility of recall of existing Members of Parliament-a proposal that the Government stole from us. That proposal is not in the Bill. The Secretary of State has explained that it is very difficult to think about and that it will take some time. I do not think it is particularly difficult, however, and I believe we can get a move on with it if there is sufficient will and open discussion among the parties.
	The Prime Minister recently put forward the proposal to hold a referendum in the next Parliament on moving to the alternative vote system, but that too is not in the Bill. The AV system is not a wholly proportional one. It can produce some rather eccentric results, but at least it is a preferential system, so from my party's point of view it is arguably a step in the right direction. The question the Government must answer is why that is not in the Bill. It is not a complicated system for them to design. I just put this thought to the Government: if provision in this Bill for a referendum in, let us say, autumn 2010 were to pass into law, it would be very difficult indeed for an incoming Government of any other party to repeal it in time to stop it happening, so why do the Government not include such provision now in this Bill?
	The position in terms of the House of Lords is similar. If the Secretary of State is right-which I think he is-that Members in all parts of the House accept that we should move to a predominantly, or, as we would prefer, a wholly, elected Chamber, why do we have to wait until the general election to make a start on that? The Secretary of State says we need all parties to put that proposal in their manifesto as that is needed to overwhelm, in some kind of argumentative way, the obstruction of those in the other place who do not wish there to be any change. I cannot see how that is so. They already know the positions of the parties. They all know what will happen at the next election. It is inevitable that there will be the result that the Secretary of State talks about, so what is the point in waiting? Why do we not now try-we might not succeed-to include in this Bill a move to a more democratic, or a wholly democratic, House of Lords, which an incoming Government from another party would find very difficult to repeal? We have heard, however, remarks from Conservative Members that imply a certain amount of delay. I think we should be acting now, in this Bill, to make sure that such delay is not effective.

Philip Dunne: The hon. Gentleman is ranging widely on the omissions from the Bill. Does he agree that another omission is the failure to overcome the lack of fairness shown to British citizens who vote when they happen to be living, either temporarily or permanently, overseas? We are now one of only four countries in the whole European Union that have restrictive rights that disfranchise millions of our citizens overseas. Should not those people be taken care of in this constitutional reform Bill?

David Howarth: I would not argue as broadly as the hon. Gentleman does, and this might not be the right Bill in which to address that issue, but I think there is a problem, especially in terms of British citizens who work for international organisations, who seem to be discriminated against in an unfortunate way.

Michael Wills: I wish to pick up on a couple of specific points. We are well aware that there is a specific problem for British citizens who work for international organisations. We are looking at it, and we hope to be able to make some significant progress. It is quite complicated, however, not least because given the vast number of such organisations, there are issues about whether they should all be included. I accept that there is an issue, however, and we are considering it.
	Turning to the point made by the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne), he well knows that the House has regularly looked at the voting restrictions placed on British citizens who choose to live overseas. Of course most of them are able to vote in this country, but if they stay outside the country for longer than a specified time, restrictions apply, as they do elsewhere as well. The hon. Gentleman therefore has not quite got that right, and I shall write to him to correct his misunderstanding.

David Howarth: I thank the Minister for that intervention, and especially for his initial comments, which amount to considerable progress on an important issue.
	Let me make one final remark on the House of Lords. I would not want an opportunity for real progress to be thrown away because the Secretary of State is inherently conservative and the Conservative party is hesitant and wants to impose a first-past-the-post electoral system on any future elected House of Lords. That would be a disaster given that we could be making real progress.
	There is an enormous amount to do in terms of the centralisation of power, but for now will the Government not at least commit to some small concessions? One thing they could do is implement the original intention of the Sustainable Communities Act 2007, which was that local government would be able to require central Government to declare what central Government spend in a local area so that negotiations can then take place on what should be done with that money. I gather that what is currently happening is that central Government interpret that Act as meaning only that central Government tell local government what local government are already spending, which of course completely undermines the whole process. Cannot the Government simply reverse their control-freak stance-which they revealed yet again last week-on the internal governance of local authorities which forces them to choose between a limited range of unsuitable Whitehall-based Government structures?
	The draft Bill included extensive provisions on removing the power of the Attorney-General to control decisions about particular cases-about whether a particular person should be prosecuted or not. In my view, it made unacceptable exceptions to that idea by talking about a national security exemption, but even this limited concession has now disappeared entirely from the Bill before the House tonight.
	The Secretary of State has not really explained what has happened. The current situation is entirely unacceptable, and I notice that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is now of a similar view. It is unacceptable for a Government Minister-a politician-to have the power to undermine the prosecution of, or even to decide to prosecute, individuals in particular cases. We all know about the controversy regarding the BAE Systems case and so on, but I do not want to discuss individual cases; I just want to talk about the principle of whether a Minister should have that sort of power. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase mentioned the separation of powers, and this seems to me the most obvious instance where the principle of the separation of powers is being violated. Such decisions should be exclusively for professional prosecutors.

Jack Straw: The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue, which I have always seen as one of fine judgment and balance. We asked both Houses to establish a Joint Committee on this Bill-that was in addition to the specific investigations being carried out by the Select Committee on Justice, the Public Administration Committee and others. The Joint Committee on the Draft Constitutional Renewal Bill, which involved both Houses and all parties, concluded that the legal and political role should be retained for the Attorney-General. It also said:
	"Given our conclusions in Chapter 3, we question whether there is a need for legislation in respect of the Attorney."
	I accept that we must keep this matter under review, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will at least accept that the reason why what was included in the original draft Bill is not included in this Bill is that we accepted a recommendation from the Joint Committee.

David Howarth: The Joint Committee was far from unanimous on that point, and the Justice Committee report clearly went the other way.

Andrew Tyrie: As a matter of fact, what the hon. Gentleman said is a big understatement. The Joint Committee had to produce a minority report, making it clear that a sizeable proportion of its members agreed with the reports produced both by the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs and the Justice Committee. They both concluded that the current arrangements for the Attorney-General, whereby he has both a political and a prosecuting role, are unsustainable.

David Howarth: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's intervention, because that is precisely what has happened. I do not think we should give way to a Joint Committee report that is plainly more reactionary than the centre of gravity of opinion in this House. It is possible to design arrangements so that there is a supervising Minister who has some say in overall policy on prosecution, but the idea that individual cases can be influenced by Ministers strikes me as being beyond the pale.
	Let us consider the civil service aspects of the Bill, on which, like the Conservatives' spokesperson and the hon. Member for Cannock Chase, I welcome the basic principle. There is, however, a minimalist feel to the way in which the idea of the "civil service Act" is being implemented in the Bill. What has happened to the idea, mentioned earlier in the debate, that special advisers should not be able to exercise Executive power and instruct civil servants? The Secretary of State says that there might be exceptions to that-I cannot think of any such circumstances that have led to good outcomes in the past. Even if there are exceptions, should not the Bill put in place the presumption that special advisers should not be able to do those things and provide for an open, transparent procedure-not an Order in Council-to make the exemptions clear and open in Parliament? Why should only selection into the civil service from the outside world-this is how I read the Bill-be subject to open and fair competition and merit? What has happened to the idea that promotion within the civil service should also be exclusively by merit and open competition? On a lesser but still important point, what has happened to the provision in respect of GCHQ, which was included in a previous draft of the Bill but has now been lost? Finally, and crucially, why does the Bill contain no legal duty on Ministers to respect civil service impartiality?
	The treaty ratification aspects of the Bill have been discussed extensively, but the conclusion that I have drawn from examining the Bill and listening to the debate is that what the Bill provides for is almost purely symbolic; it is not a real change. That is because the Government-this is the central issue with which the Select Committee on Reform of the House of Commons, which the hon. Member for Cannock Chase chairs, is grappling-have a complete stranglehold on what we get to vote on in this House. If a purely negative procedure is to be used in respect of treaties, this House will never get to vote on a treaty when the Government do not want us to do so. What the Bill says about the House of Lords is that the Government can simply, by fiat, ignore what it says on a treaty. In any case, clause 23 contains a general get-out clause allowing the Government to evade the entire proposed structure.

Jack Straw: It was my experience as Foreign Secretary, when I regarded it as offensive to this House and our democracy that Parliament had no formal, proper role to agree or to veto treaties, that led to this part of the Bill being laid before the House. This provision is not, in any sense, supposed to be symbolic. We are, of course, open to arguments as to how it could be improved, but I should say that never before has there been-as there will be if this Bill is enacted-power for this House properly to veto a ratification if it so judges.

David Howarth: I am glad that the Secretary of State is open to further suggestions-the obvious one is to move to use the affirmative system, as opposed to the negative procedure, in this House. That would at least ensure that a vote took place in this House, even if a debate did not.
	The Bill is very disappointing on prerogative powers. The document that the Government issued last week is possibly the most complacent that I have ever seen come out of government. Basically, it lists the prerogative powers that are known to exist and then says, "Apart from one or two that the Government have already covered, there is nothing wrong with the present system and it is a very good idea that Ministers should have all these powers." It simply makes a mockery of the Prime Minister's promise to entrust
	"more power to Parliament and the British people."-[ Official Report, 3 July 2007; Vol. 462, c. 815.]
	Like the Secretary of State, I would have much more strongly preferred to see something concrete about war powers in the Bill, rather than merely a proposal about consideration of a draft resolution of the House. That was rightly described by the Public Administration Committee as leaving
	"too much discretion in the hands of the Prime Minister."
	The Bill contains nothing about the Dissolution of Parliament and nothing about many of the other powers listed last week. Crucially, it contains nothing about the power to appoint the Prime Minister, which remains in the mysterious official channels of ways and means. That is not acceptable in modern democracy; this House should openly elect our Prime Minister, after a general election. The prerogative is simply arbitrary power dressed up in mediaeval clothes, and it is a means for the Government to avoid democratic scrutiny. We should be discussing a general provision to shift all prerogative powers on to a statutory basis or to this House, and the Government should have to argue for any exceptions to that.
	May I just briefly mention the public order provisions, because I was disturbed by part of the debate about that earlier? I am happy that the provisions that exist now on protest near Parliament are being repealed, but the Bill replaces them with a regulatory regime that could be abused. I am thinking about, for example, the power at large to confer discretions on senior police officers and the power to impose a limit on the maximum number of protestors without there being any limit to that power. When this Bill reaches Committee we will need to examine carefully what those provisions are meant to do and, if necessary, restrict their remit.
	On the judiciary, as the Secretary of State said, the effect of the Bill is to take the Prime Minister out of the loop on judicial appointments. I suppose that that is also largely symbolic, since the Prime Minister is replaced with the real power in the land-the power behind the throne all the time-the Lord Chancellor.
	On human rights, I have no objection to tidying up the anomalies to do with the devolved Governments. However, if the Government are in a frame of mind to tidy up the Human Rights Act 1998, I urge them to consider not only the Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on foreign civil servants, which he has mentioned before, but, rather more importantly, his Bill on human rights, which would ensure that Government contracted-out services, which are only technically in the private sector, are included in the scope of the Human Rights Act.
	The financial provisions of the Bill on the Comptroller and Auditor General and the National Audit Office are mostly harmless, but there is nothing in the Bill to deal with the ludicrous lack of scrutiny to which the Government are subject in this House before they spend public money. Our method of scrutiny takes place almost entirely after the fact. We in this House have less say in advance of Government spending than a parish council does about what that council spends. Since the reality of politics is that expenditure is policy and policy is expenditure, we are reduced to merely a spectator in government. It seems to me that serious reforms are required to the way in which Parliament relates to the Government on money issues. The Bill, as it does with so many other issues, simply tinkers lightly with the far edges of a very serious problem.
	A Second Reading debate is supposed to be about the principle of a Bill, and the principle of this Bill appears to be to do as little as possible about as much as possible in a limited way. The big issues that face us about the legitimacy of the political system and the future of our democracy have been ignored. If I am right that we are already in a constitutional moment-in a serious political crisis-that is simply an inadequate response. I urge the Government to think again about what they want to achieve through the Bill and about whether it is right to introduce such a pathetic little Bill at this stage and carry it over into the next Session. It might be a better idea to take the whole thing away and to return in the next Session with a serious attempt at reform.

Keith Vaz: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth). I do not share his pessimism that we are in a huge political crisis. Although aspects of the public's confidence in this House and the conduct of its Members have been affected, I do not think that it is a huge constitutional crisis. I hope that by the end of the debate we will have cheered him up and shown him that some good work has been done in the past 12 years.
	I begin by declaring an interest as a non-practising barrister.
	This is the first debate on constitutional affairs since the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills), announced that he will step down at the next election. It is right to pay tribute to him for the work that he has done in this area of policy. He has always been extraordinarily passionate about constitutional affairs. I was delighted when he chose Leicester as the first city to visit on his roadshow. I am not sure how many other places he visited- [ Interruption. ] Lots, he tells us. It was great to have him in Leicester and I hope that it gave him a flavour of the willingness of the people of Leicester to engage in this great constitutional debate.
	The Lord Chancellor is absolutely right that this has been a breathtaking 12 years of great changes to our constitution. We have seen devolution and the creation of the Supreme Court, as well as changes to many other aspects of constitutional policy. The Government should be commended for what they have done. However, I am a little disappointed by the Bill-a disappointment I share with the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve). I had expected, as the Bill has such a grand title, that it would have more to it than the measures that the Lord Chancellor told the House about in his speech. It is like opening the fridge on a Monday morning and finding that all the best bits have gone. Perhaps we have legislated our way into constitutional history and there is nothing left to do, but I had hoped that there would be more in the Bill, because there is still more to do. Perhaps, as we are only five months away from a general election-as fixed a term as is possible, because we know that the election will happen next year-the Lord Chancellor feels that he should keep his best bits for the manifesto and for the fourth term, should the electors of the United Kingdom re-elect this Government, as I hope they will.
	It is right to pay tribute to all three Lord Chancellors in this Government-to Lord Irvine; to my former boss when I was a Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General's Department, Lord Falconer; and to the current Lord Chancellor. They have been serious about the need for reform and change, and it is important that we recognise that although the Bill might not be the Bill that we would have liked at this stage, it is part of that process.
	Let me pick up on two or three aspects of the Bill. I hope that the Lord Chancellor will follow it through in the spirit in which he introduced the Second Reading debate. I have known him now for 30 years, and I know that when he says that he is willing to engage in debate on issues he will do so. The way in which he has dealt with interventions from right hon. and hon. Members and from Front Benchers shows that he will be willing to engage in such debate in Committee.
	I was interested by the suggestion proposed by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field), which appeared to have come from a pamphlet written by the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), whom I have always regarded as one of the cleverest Members of this House. If he has written a pamphlet about the need for temporary peers, it will certainly be worth reading, and I shall rush off to the Library to do so. Let me take his pamphlet at face value, as it was described by the Lord Chancellor and by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster. Its intention is to ensure that we appoint peers for a short period, whether or not they serve as Ministers. Such a provision should not be limited to people who serve as Ministers of the Crown; it should extend to those in a particular area of expertise, who could be appointed for a couple of years, as it would be unfair to put them in for a month and hope that they can master the intricacies of the way in which the other place operates.
	I fully support the principle of temporary membership, especially as there appears, as the hon. Member for Cambridge has pointed out, to be no great difference among the three major parties about the need to make the House of Lords more democratic. I am not quite sure where we are on the percentages, but our position is that the other place should be almost wholly elected. I am not sure of the Conservative position, but I think that the Liberal Democrats are in favour of a wholly elected upper House. Given that there is not that much difference, and accepting what the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield said about our not being able to legislate in a day, the idea of temporary peers is a good one, especially if they are brought in to serve in a Government for a particular reason.
	There is no reason why people should be in the other place for life-under the old terms of what life should be-if they are there for a specific purpose. That is why I welcome the proposals in the Bill to allow peers to resign. I do not think that there is a hidden agenda about any particular member of the Government or of the other House, but surely it must be right for a peer who wants to resign and to contest an election to the House of Commons to be allowed to do so. I am not clear whether that would affect the next general election. Perhaps the Minister of State, when he winds up, will be able to tell us. However, it would be pointless to introduce a Bill that allows peers to resign but then not allow them to do so and contest the next general election, if that is what they choose.
	My second point has to do with judicial appointments. I take the Lord Chancellor's point that removing the Prime Minister from the process would be a technical change, but I have been here long enough to know that the word "technical" can be used about matters that are a little more significant than that. I am not certain that the present Lord Chancellor has been in a position to make a recommendation to the Prime Minister, or whether the president of the Supreme Court was in place before my right hon. Friend took over, but I cannot believe that any serving Prime Minister would have told any of the past three Lord Chancellors, "I'm sorry, but I cannot accept your recommendation." Certainly, I cannot believe that the current Prime Minister would say to the present Lord Chancellor, "Sorry, I don't like your choices for president of the Supreme Court, or for the deputy president and other members. Please let me have some other people to choose from."
	I am worried that, once the selection process is complete, appointments are merely rubber-stamped. I do not think that they should be, as the appointment of these very senior judges must be accountable to Parliament. I served on the Constitutional Affairs Committee under the enlightened leadership of the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). He and I, and the hon. Member for Chichester, were very keen to make sure that we had the judges in on a regular basis.
	Yesterday, we saw how the pre-appointment process in respect of the Children's Commissioner panned out. I am not sure how that process might have affected the appointment of the president of the Supreme Court, but I am sure that at some stage he would have come in to answer questions from members of the Constitutional Affairs Committee.
	I am not saying that I want to go back to the previous system, in which one man or woman-a man, in the case of the present Lord Chancellor-selected every judge, tribunal president or magistrate. However, our current system has not impressed me with its ability to open up the judiciary in terms of diversity and gender, so I am glad that the Lord Chancellor has set up his review to look at how the Judicial Appointments Commission operates. I am glad too that the Opposition spokesman, the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield, has said that he supports the review, because it is important to see how the JAC has worked.
	I am not very impressed with the JAC, in part because there is not enough feedback for people who apply for posts. By and large, the same civil servants who ran the system at Selborne House are running the present system. There has not been a mass recruitment of new people. I hope that those who serve on the Committee considering the Bill will probe Ministers about what is happening with the JAC. I do not want to pick a quarrel with the Lord Chancellor about removing the Prime Minister from the process, but he needs to accept the importance of accountability.
	We simply cannot have members of the judiciary choosing themselves. There are lay members of the JAC, but they are likely to defer to a senior judge's views on any appointment. The result will be that the same people will select themselves: sadly, that is what we have had in recent months, and that is why the overall balance of the judiciary has not changed.
	I turn now to the public order provisions in the Bill. I am not sure what they are. The Lord Chancellor said that the present restrictions will be lifted, but that there are to be more restrictions. That will have to be probed in Committee: people have a right to go into Parliament square to have their say about the great issues of the day.
	I have many members of the Tamil community in my constituency. During the conflict in Sri Lanka, many Tamils demonstrated in Parliament square against the Sri Lankan Government in the belief that they could influence our Government to do more than they were doing. In fact, the demonstration lasted several months and cost the taxpayer £7.5 million. When the Home Affairs Committee took evidence from the Mayor and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, it was pointed out that police resources for that demonstration had been moved in from other parts of London.
	I do not want to try to stop people demonstrating, but perhaps we should try to find another focal point where they can do so without causing so much disruption. That would also prevent the amount of resources used on the Tamil demonstration from having to be used in future. Obviously, it would be very nice if people did not shout at Members of Parliament as they moved in and out of the Palace-although I know that the Lord Chancellor is very used to standing on a soapbox and using a megaphone. He does so every week in Blackburn; I have witnessed him standing in the middle of the town square, shouting at everyone who goes past-

Jack Straw: I have a conversation with my constituents.

Keith Vaz: My right hon. Friend engages with his constituents, and they engage with him. It is always very friendly and polite, but that is quite different from what happens in Parliament square. We need to look at the matter and get the balance right, but we must also remember that there are policing aspects to it. There is a big cost to policing: when demonstrations take place, we must make sure that they are properly policed, without necessarily using too many resources.
	My final point concerns the ratification of treaties. This is an excellent initiative on the part of the Lord Chancellor, although of course it is Parliament that must make a final decision on these matters. I only wish that we had given the US-UK extradition treaty the same level of scrutiny.
	The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes) was here a moment ago. His constituent Gary McKinnon is facing removal to the US under the US-UK treaty. The Home Affairs Committee today decided to hold evidence sessions to look at the treaty again, as I believe very strongly that the Americans got the best of the deal. I am not alone in believing that: as I made clear when we discussed these matters recently, my view is shared by a former Home Secretary. It is possible that treaties will be subject to better scrutiny if they are brought before the House, and I welcome what the Lord Chancellor proposes.
	There have been huge constitutional changes over the past 12 years, and I am very proud to have served in, and supported, the Government who made them. However, some of us are disappointed with the Bill, from which we expected more but which lacks a big idea. The Prime Minister took over in June 2007, and he talked about the new constitutional settlement. At the time, I said to him, "What we need is a new Magna Carta. We've done so much, but we need to join it all together." He agreed, and said that that was exactly what we needed. I said the same thing to the Minister of State, but the problem appeared to be that people objected to paying the £1 million proposed for the consultation exercise. Of course, the Magna Carta did not cost so much.
	We need to join all the bits together-whether through a written constitution, a new Bill of rights, or a new Magna Carta. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) said, this is a moment in our history. It would be great if we could join together all the changes that we have made, and thereby leave an impressive legacy of constitutional reform.

Andrew Tyrie: I shall confine my remarks almost exclusively to part 3 of the Bill, on the House of Lords. I agree with most of the Bill and with quite a number of the remarks that I have heard this evening suggesting that some good things that should have been in the Bill were left out-concerning the Attorney-General, for example. Several people suggested that after the Prime Minister's speech announcing all these wonderful constitutional changes, it must be Christmas-but it turned out to be Christmas in the workhouse, not the Christmas that most of us are fortunate enough to enjoy these days.
	The Lords provisions are pretty meagre, as I have just said, but at least clause 26, which will slowly remove the hereditary peerage, is on the right track. It is certainly overdue and it will finally break the link between the House of Lords and the hereditary principle. That must be right. There are those who still challenge the constitutional notion that in the 21st( )century only those who have been put into Parliament by the electorate should have the right to make our laws, but there are now very few takers indeed for the notion that people should inherit the right to legislate-although, who knows, there may still be a few.
	It is often forgotten that clause 26 is necessary, and that the hereditaries are still in place, because it suited the Blair Government's purpose to keep them there. Not only did the Blair Government beat a hasty retreat from their pre-election promises of democracy for the Lords, but Tony Blair personally negotiated and stitched up a backroom deal with Lord Cranborne to perpetuate the hereditary peerage. That deal was subsequently given legislative effect in clauses in the House of Lords Act 1999.
	I broke a three-line Whip to vote against those provisions, finding myself voting against both my party and the Labour party. In fact, in all three of the major rebellions that I have undertaken since I became an MP, I have been in the happy position, over 12 years, of voting against both the major parties. It is those provisions in the 1999 Act that clause 26 will reverse. If there is a vote on them, I certainly shall not vote against clause 26.
	It is worth reminding ourselves just how pernicious what was done in 1999 is. It enables deceased hereditaries to be replaced by an electorate restricted to hereditaries of the same party. Lord Steel gave an interesting description of this. He said:
	"We"-
	that is, the Liberal Democrats-
	"had six candidates for a by-election and four voters. Before the Great Reform Bill of 1832, the rotten borough of Old Sarum had at least 11 voters. In the Labour Party, there were 11 candidates and only three voters, and we had the spectacle of the Clerk of the Parliaments declaring to the world that a new Member had been elected to the British Parliament by two votes to one."-[ Official Report, House of Lords, 20 July 2007; Vol. 694, c. 485.]
	We need to move on from that.
	The effect of removing the remaining hereditaries and the clauses on the removal and resignation of Members will reduce the size of the House of Lords. That is much needed, for many reasons. First, the House of Lords is the second biggest Chamber in the world. The only larger Chamber claiming to have any democratic legitimacy at all, and that is pretty thin, is the Chinese National party congress. Moreover, the UK is the only bicameral country where the second Chamber is larger than the first.
	The second reason why the House of Lords needs to be reduced in size is that the problem of size has got worse under Labour. That is because the Government have created peerages at an unprecedented rate. Most of the hereditaries who were removed in 1999 never attended anyway. Half the active hereditary peerage survived in 1999 and became more active. Meanwhile, the Labour Government have appointed a huge number of peers- 386 out of a total of about 740. More than half the Members of the current House have come in since 1997. Labour, albeit understandably, because it was under-represented in the Lords, has been packing the second Chamber since it came in.

Kelvin Hopkins: Is not that the real problem with the House of Lords-the power of the Prime Minister to appoint people to it, which gives him a control over older Back Benchers in this House and friends in business outside? My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) has made the point that these creatures of the Prime Minister are even less legitimate and less independent than the hereditary peers, who exercise a degree of independence in voting, and may be better politicians than some of the creatures of the Prime Minister.

Andrew Tyrie: If I did not know the hon. Gentleman better, I might believe that he was a convert to the hereditary principle, but I presume that he is not. Appointment is, by a short head, better than heredity, but democracy is far better than both. I shall come to that in a moment.
	The Labour deficit that existed in 1997 has been replaced with a Labour majority over the Conservatives of a little under 10 per cent. in the House of Lords. The third reason why size is such a problem is that that has inadvertently created a ratchet. I do not think Labour intended that. When the Conservatives come in, whether now or later, we will not let matters rest. We will rightly want to match Labour's number with new creations, then we will probably want to create a modest majority of our own. So in an effort to achieve parity and beyond, the overall size of the Lords will increase, because those will be life peerages, and so it will go on. Each time there is a change of Government, there will be tit for tat. We cannot carry on like that, with an ever expanding House of Lords.
	There is one radical solution, to which I referred a moment ago and for which I have argued since I was first elected to the Commons. Let us have a smaller, democratically elected second Chamber. This view is strongly held across the House of Commons-59 per cent. of Conservative MPs voted in the 2007 Divisions for at least one of the options for a largely or wholly elected second Chamber. The equivalent figures for Labour were 76 per cent. and for the Liberal Democrats 98 per cent.
	Furthermore, as the Lord Chancellor suggested earlier, when it comes to much of the detail, there is a striking amount of agreement about the type of elected Chamber that we should put in place. I was initially sceptical about the work being done on the basis of the White Paper that was published, but I am now much more optimistic that it has made a considerable contribution to the debate.
	However, if the chances of securing democracy in the near future were already relatively slim, they can now be considered virtually non-existent, as a consequence of the economic crisis. That has changed everything. Any Government who tried to make such a change in such an economic climate would be accused of having the wrong priorities, and the accusation would probably stick. People would become all the more vitriolic if, as I suspect would happen and a number of Members have implied would happen, introducing such a Bill precipitated a constitutional crisis.
	There are a good number of last ditchers in the other place and they will throw out such a Bill. We will be into a constitutional crisis, with huge amounts of parliamentary time, energy and activity taken up with trying to get it through. It will be a rerun of what happened 100 years ago. Can we afford to engage in that while we are trying to tackle the biggest economic recession since the war, when the debt-to-GDP ratio has just doubled and we are running a deficit unprecedented in peacetime history? I do not think the country would understand that, and any party that tried to achieve it would be making a huge political and governmental mistake.
	However, the choice need not be between the measures in part 3, on the one hand, and full democracy on the other. There is another measure, very limited and with immediate effect, which could control the ratchet on the number of peerages created, improve the working of the existing House, and at the same time lay the foundations for a more radical democratic House, should a subsequent Parliament decide to go down that route. That measure would be the introduction of term peerages: peerages conferred for a fixed period. I have held to the view for some years that it might be necessary as an interim measure.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) is now the shadow Leader of the House, but earlier in the year, when he was still a Back Bencher, he and I published a paper setting out the proposal, with some detail attached to it. Term peerages would adopt the approach, already agreed between the parties, that a predominantly elected second Chamber would comprise those serving a single, non-renewable term of three Parliaments. The term of those appointments would therefore be the same as that which we would eventually introduce for a democratic second Chamber: three Parliaments. I do not support varying the term to take account of a Government's particular needs at a particular time to put in a Minister whom they might want for a short period. The term should be fixed and, perhaps, salaried, and it should be understood that getting a place in that Chamber would involve work and commitment. It would not be a status appointment.
	The advantages of the measure would be apparent very quickly. It would end the ratchet and emphasise that those people were active working politicians. Lord Jay, the Chairman of the House of Lords Appointments Commission, recently emphasised that the appointments process should
	"move further along that curve from honour to job."
	I agree, as I think most people do.
	Another reason why we should support the proposal is that, unlike most proposals for democracy, it would leave existing life peers unaffected. One might find it surprising that I should say that, but any proposal that would fundamentally alter the life peerage will meet such a wall of opposition that proceedings on it will take over this place for a year or two at a time. By agreement between the parties, however, new life peerages could be brought to an end, and we could restrict appointments to interim peerages-much as, over time, hereditary peerages were largely but not entirely replaced by life peerages after the 1958 change.
	Almost everyone agrees that the current arrangements for the House of Lords are unsatisfactory to say the least-almost everyone, that is, except a majority in the House of Lords itself, who are a somewhat interested party in this matter. However, an increasing number acknowledge my earlier point that an early move to democracy is unrealistic in this economic climate, so term peerages would be a practical means of invigorating the Lords while addressing many of its current problems, strengthening our Parliament and constitution and retaining some continuity with the best of the current House.
	I shall table an amendment in Committee to give effect to term peerages. In doing so, I should very much like the support of my Front Benchers and, I hope, Labour Members as well as Liberal Members. I hope and believe that it is an idea whose time has come.
	There has been a great deal of gloom, some of which we have heard today, about the British constitution, about Parliament and about the public's loss of confidence in us. The proposal that I have outlined will not overturn all that, but by demonstrating that we can work together on a relatively modest, yet in the long run far-reaching, change, we will do something to show that we in this Chamber are working for the common weal, and we will do just a little bit to help restore the public's confidence in us.

Kelvin Hopkins: I very much appreciate the speech by the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), but I assure him that I am actually a unicameralist who voted accordingly in our series of votes in the Chamber. I voted for unicameralism and against everything else, as did a number of my comrades on the Labour Benches. Indeed, half of all Labour Back Benchers voted for that amendment, despite the attractions of being put out to grass towards the end of their careers. They still voted in a principled way for unicameralism, and I was very pleased by that.
	I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak, and even more pleased to be a member of the Select Committee on Public Administration, which my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) so splendidly chairs. It has really been an experience: we have discussed these matters at length on many occasions and interviewed many senior figures from politics and Government.
	I want to cover several issues, but I start with the right to statutory protection for an independent civil service. The civil service has certain problems. This view may be unfashionable, but I do not like the idea that the civil service should be permeated by business and outside interests. It is absolutely accepted that we should have staff of the highest intellectual calibre in the senior civil service, but they should be career civil servants who see themselves as lifelong, committed people-committed to the service of the public and the state. They should not have one foot in business, nor should they be politicised. They should not look for financial advancement or advantage at any stage; they should see themselves as servants of the state and have a moral compass-to coin a phrase-in respect of their attitude to the job. The post of senior civil servant should be a special calling, not something tainted by association with making money and the like.
	I am worried about drift in the civil service. Some people see it as beneficial to the service, but I do not. It has been suggested to me, for example, that there is an in-house corporate lobby for the six big energy producers, meaning that civil servants resist proposals for localised renewable energy systems by dragging their feet and making life difficult for those involved. It is not without significance that we have less renewable energy than every other European country apart from Malta and Luxembourg, and I suspect that civil servants have had a part to play in that. I do not blame all civil servants, but the accusation has been put to me and I suspect that there is a basis to it.
	Some years ago, a leading business man was employed by a company to secure private finance initiative contracts from the Department of Health, and all of a sudden he was appointed as the Department's industrial director, levering out PFI schemes from the inside to his friends on the outside. He subsequently went off to become a banker. The civil service should not consist of such people. They should be in banking, no doubt, and in private business, but they should not be representing the public interest from inside the civil service. That has concerned me for a long time.
	There is another fact about the civil service which worries me: civil servants have tended to be dominated by the prevailing ideology of the past 20 or 30 years. When I was a student many years ago, I met a former senior civil servant who was a university lecturer. He said that in his day there was a genuine debate inside the civil service about economics, and if policy changed there were always civil servants around who were schooled in an alternative view, and they could put it into practice. That is not the case now. The Treasury was at fault in not seeing the recent crisis that occurred. I hear very little criticism of the Treasury, but I think that it was at fault. If somebody had been ringing the alarm bells, we would not have got as close to the cliff edge as we did. Perhaps I have a dream that there was once a golden age for the civil service when it was dominated by people of good will-career civil servants who were not at all tainted by the interests of money outside, and had open minds.
	Another fact about the civil service is that it is, in all things, wise to be able to discuss one's view with someone who opposes them. In this Chamber we have an enormous range of views, and every time we put forward a view it can be challenged. Someone who surrounds himself with people all of whom agree with him, or eliminates from his office anybody who disagrees with him, will finish up making mistakes. That has happened in the past. An example that has been put to me is that of Nigel Lawson, as Chancellor, pushing the exchange rate mechanism strategy. Apparently he did not want people who took an alternative view, and surrounded himself with those who supported the ERM strategy. That was a catastrophic mistake that went badly wrong; I suggest that it was even responsible for his party's loss of the general election in 1997. It was the folk memory of the disaster of the ERM strategy that destroyed the Tory Government more than anything else. If Nigel Lawson had had around him people who took a strongly different view, he might not have made that mistake. I like to think that our civil servants will be strong enough to welcome alternative views and at least to have a debate about major matters of policy.
	I have another concern, about the Comptroller and Auditor General-but excuse me, Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have a sore throat and a cold, and I do not think that I shall be able to continue for much longer because of my mild indisposition. Having made some of the points that I wished to make, I will save the rest of my remarks for another occasion.

Alan Beith: It is always a pleasure to listen to the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins), even when he is struggling with a sore throat, from which I hope he soon recovers.
	Before reading the Bill, I had a look at the explanatory notes-I usually do it the other round-and found to my surprise that they were full of aspirational comments from the Green Paper of July 2007, stating that the background to the Bill included the Government's goals
	"To invigorate our democracy...To clarify the role of Government, both central and local...To rebalance power between Parliament and the Government, and give Parliament more ability to hold the Government to account...and...To work with the British people to achieve a stronger sense of what it means to be British."
	That all sounds very fine, but it does not seem to have a great deal to do with the Bill that we now have before us. I appreciate that that Green Paper also related to some of the other things that the Government have done. I celebrated one of those with them only last Friday with the opening of the Supreme Court-a happy occasion. That is an important symbolic change that also has some practical significance and one that I very much welcome. That measure was introduced only after my Committee, the Justice Committee, had persuaded the Government to get it right following the back-of-an-envelope job with which they started, but all credit to them for carrying it through.
	When I looked from those grand aspirations to the Bill, I saw a Bill that had first been stripped of some of the important issues that were raised in 2007, such as the role of the Attorney-General, and seems even slighter when set against the Prime Minister's statement on the constitution in July this year. It represents a distinct change of atmosphere. I was struck by the Secretary of State's quoting the report by the Joint Committee on the Draft Constitutional Renewal Bill and indicating that there was significant opposition in the House of Lords to the proposals to change the precise status of the Attorney-General. I do not know whether his experience compares with mine, but I find that in discussions in the other place one encounters the trade union of former Law Officers, who find it difficult to accept that there should ever be any change in that position. They are rather like the Lord Chancellor in "Iolanthe":
	"The Law is the true embodiment
	Of everything that's excellent."
	In particular, members of that informal trade union believe that any change in the position of Attorney-General casts doubt on the ability that they themselves exercised to draw a proper distinction between their political and legal roles-that it casts doubt on their integrity. Of course, it is nothing of the kind-it is a consideration of what would be a proper system for the future. Nevertheless, that seems to be a pretty powerful body at the other end of the building.
	The Bill fails to meet the objectives set out in the Prime Minister's statement. Let us start with the House of Lords. The hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), who is a valued member of the Justice Committee, advanced his own interesting proposal, but what we are in danger of living with for many years to come is not what this House voted for-a predominantly elected second Chamber-but an appointed Chamber in which more and more people are appointed and all new Governments carry out a rebalancing by appointing many more peers to ensure that the Chamber is not overwhelmed by those from the previous Administration. The hon. Gentleman quoted the very high figure of 300-odd peers appointed under the present Government. The Prime Minister has himself appointed no fewer than eleven peers to be Ministers, many of whom have since given up that role but still have the position of legislator for life that membership of the House of Lords confers. It now looks as though we will have a long continuation of appointment, possibly moderated in the way the hon. Gentleman suggested. There is merit in his proposal, particularly if it is possible that a new Government, of whatever kind, might-because nothing had yet been done to change the Lords- have to make some initial appointments.
	An alternative solution to the problem is to allow Governments to have a certain number of Ministers who are not a Member of either House but who can be questioned in either House. We already have the problem that some of the most powerful Ministers in the Government, such as the Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, cannot be brought into the Chamber of this House to be questioned, although they can be brought into Select Committees. There is no reason why we should not make arrangements for a small number of Ministers, whether from the Lords or not from either House, to be questioned in this Chamber.
	I have not made up my mind to oppose the proposal by the hon. Member for Chichester, but my worry is that it would give a spurious legitimacy to appointment for potentially quite a long period and further delay the reform that is required-the creation of a predominantly elected second Chamber. I suspect that he must have been influenced by hearing about leaders in his own party starting to hand out their own future peerages. We even know who some of them will be, if the Conservatives get the opportunity to create them. If we are to believe what we read in the press, serving officers still receiving their pay in Her Majesty's forces-in the case of Sir Richard Dannatt-are being told that a peerage will be theirs. In respect of the House of Lords, the Bill, whether or not amended in the way that the hon. Member for Chichester suggests, goes nowhere towards meeting the Prime Minister's aspirations.
	The Bill does not advance the aspirations about rebalancing the relationship between the Executive and Parliament. I agree that it is right that Parliament should approve treaties, but let nobody suppose that in most situations that will not mean the Government of the day winning the support of their own Members to ensure that a treaty is ratified. The Bill does not affect the things that severely unbalance the relationship between the Executive and Parliament now. Even in the workings of Parliament itself, so many things need to be attended to. I sincerely hope that those matters will be addressed by the Public Administration Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), which plays a significant part in this process.
	In the Justice Committee, we feel strongly that there are crucial things to be done. The control of the Order Paper by the Executive means that what this House discusses is effectively decided by the Executive. The dual role of the Leader of the House in being the main channel for House business, yet at the same time a member of the Executive, is not the way in which most legislatures would run their affairs. The House itself has no mechanism for introducing effective motions relating to business and the timing of business other than through the Leader of the House. The House itself is not making the decisions about how the Government's business should be dealt with. The Government are entitled to bring their business before the House and to have a means of ensuring that they are not frustrated by delay. However, the House should have the power to decide what are the most significant parts of that business and how it can be effectively debated, as well as to say, "We need more time to deal with this Bill even if we have to sacrifice some time on another Bill." At the moment, the House does not have that power. That is not to anyone's benefit, least of all those who have to work with the legislation that the House passes.
	If anybody thought that the Government, in introducing the idea of confirmation or appointment hearings, had any intention of rebalancing the relationship between Parliament and the Executive, they will have been disabused of that notion by the discovery that on a rare occasion when a Committee has said, "No, we don't like the idea of this appointment", the Executive have replied, "That's very interesting, but we're taking no notice whatever." Nothing about the Bill or the measures surrounding it will rebalance the relationship between the Executive and Parliament, so it totally fails to satisfy the Prime Minister's aspirations.
	What about the decentralising of power to local government? I see no evidence that the Government are prepared to take many steps in that direction or that they have accepted the fundamental philosophy required to so do, which is that local authorities in different parts of the country can do things differently and frame different targets and objectives instead of having them set by central Government. That is an issue for all the parties to consider, and it is part of my party's philosophy to a significant extent. Even we have to challenge ourselves from time to time and ask whether we are abiding by the philosophy of recognising localism.
	I am convinced that the Conservative party has not absorbed a point that had a certain resonance in Conservative circles in times past-the importance of local decisions, locally made. The ideas that the party is currently putting forward are not backed up by a real philosophical commitment. Whenever anybody uses the expression "postcode lottery", I have to say, "Just a minute. We are bound to have differences between postcodes if we genuinely allow local authorities to make different decisions and make them democratically accountable for doing so." I challenge that term whenever I hear it. Of course people are entitled to campaign that their area should get what another area is providing, but in the context of different areas making different choices among competing priorities.
	The Prime Minister has raised the issue of electoral reform and talked about a referendum on the alternative vote system. Indeed, the Government commissioned a substantial piece of work about the details of electoral reform, which produced a good, objective statement about various kinds of electoral system. It was one of the more objective things that I have seen come from the Government on the subject. However, none of that indicates any real progress or commitment. We will not rebalance the relationship between Parliament and the Executive if Governments can, for most of the time, rely on a significant majority in this House that is not reflected in votes in the country. The Prime Minister has also mentioned a written constitution, which can cover a wide range of possibilities and would be a major undertaking for this country.
	Perhaps even more significant are the issues that the Prime Minister has not mentioned and are not in the Bill, but are fundamental if we are reviewing our constitution. The one that few people dare to discuss is the English question. England has been left with a pre-devolution form of government in a pre-devolution time warp. The government of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has changed fundamentally, but England is governed by the Government of the United Kingdom. It is governed by UK Ministers and the UK Parliament, so not only is Parliament unrepresentative of the balance of parties in England, but many Ministers dealing entirely with English matters are drawn from the other parts of the UK.
	There are many different ways of responding to that problem, but it cannot be acceptable simply to say that nothing has changed. Things clearly have changed-people look at Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and see different kinds of decisions being taken. They say, "We do not have the power to make those decisions, either in a region of England, in a local authority area or at England level." The Justice Committee has addressed that point in its report on devolution, and the Government must address it.
	Another crucial issue that is absent from the Government's thinking and from the Bill is that of fixed-term Parliaments. As long as the Prime Minister can seek a dissolution at a time of his choosing, Parliament is weakened in relation to the Executive and we impose a limitation on its ability to challenge them.
	I turn now to the role of the Attorney-General, which I mentioned earlier. It was covered in the draft Bill but is not in the Bill in front of us. The Attorney-General combines a ministerial role as overseer of the prosecution system with the role of legal adviser to the Government and that of deciding whether certain prosecutions should go ahead. The view of the Justice Committee was that those roles should be separated, and that view is widespread outside the House. It is brought into sharp focus when controversial cases arise.
	The situation was in some ways worsened when the assumption was created that the Attorney-General should attend not just Cabinet meetings at which her advice was needed but all Cabinet meetings, which was the situation until relatively recently. When we questioned the current Attorney-General about that, she indicated that it was the Prime Minister's wish that she should attend all Cabinet meetings. I thought that that answer was rather revealing, because it showed the significance to her of the Prime Minister's wishes. I would rather hear the Attorney-General say, "The Prime Minister may want certain things, but I am the Attorney-General and my role is very distinct." There are many issues on which she has to say exactly that.
	There have been some changes in the wake of the discussions on the draft Bill, and the Attorney-General does not now attend all Cabinet meetings. We are back to the previous situation, and she attends when asked to do so to discuss particular matters. The decision was made that there should be a protocol to strengthen the independence of the Director of Public Prosecutions, which I welcome as it has given a certain new authority to the Crown Prosecution Service. My Committee recently reported on the work of the CPS and the progress that it is making.
	One issue that the Committee was particularly concerned about was the power in the draft Bill for the Attorney-General to discontinue not only prosecutions but investigations by the Serious Fraud Office. That is no longer in the Bill, as that whole section has gone. The response to our questions and criticisms was that that power essentially already existed, because the SFO is the responsibility of the Attorney-General. If anybody believes that that power exists, I am rather concerned about it. I hope that its absence from the Bill can be taken as an indication that Parliament does not want it to be viewed in that light. It is one thing for the Attorney-General to decide that a prosecution should not go ahead on the grounds of national security, but it is quite another for her to decide that a matter should not be investigated at all. That power does not exist in relation to police or Revenue and Customs prosecutions, and it should not be assumed to exist in the case of serious fraud.
	On national security, my view, which was reflected in what the Committee said, is that it is not really the Attorney-General who knows about that. There are circumstances in which the Prime Minister, advised by intelligence agencies, knows things about national security that will be unknown to the Attorney-General, and there are very exceptional circumstances when it will be right for the Prime Minister to make representations to the DPP about the national security implications of proceeding with a prosecution. When that is the case, those representations should come directly from the Prime Minister, which would make them persuasive to the DPP. I do not see a necessary role for the Attorney-General in that process.
	Essentially, the Justice Committee argued that the office should be separated out. There should be a legal adviser to the Government who is a career civil servant, which is the direction in which things are moving in Scotland. The current Lord Advocate has moved from one Administration to another and remained in office, so that is moving in the direction of a career appointment. There should still be a ministerial role for someone with responsibility for whether the prosecution system is working, efficient and properly resourced. I hope that I am wrong in imagining that the Government have carefully drafted the Bill to prevent us from discussing that matter in Committee, because many of us feel that we ought to do so.

Andrew Tyrie: I have just one point to make. I strongly agree with everything that the right hon. Gentleman has just said about the Attorney-General's role, but he did not make the point that it was not only the Justice Committee that came to that conclusion, but the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs, both of which the right hon. Gentleman chaired. The Public Administration Committee also looked at the issue and came to the same conclusion. The same evidence from the same people was then heard by the Joint Committee, which extraordinarily seemed to divine from it a quite different conclusion. I think that that might say something about how the decision to withdraw that part of the Bill came to be taken.

Alan Beith: When talking about the Justice Committee, I tend to subsume our previous existence as the Constitutional Affairs Committee, having been Chairman throughout, as the changes of departmental name and structure were reflected in what we were doing. However, the hon. Gentleman is quite right to refer to the other bodies that have taken the same view. Those on the Joint Committee who argued very strongly for that view were perplexed by anyone drawing a different conclusion from the evidence with which they were presented.
	To return to the overall theme, the Prime Minister has announced grand aspirations. Clearly, this is a time when we need to offer people a basis on which they can have greater confidence that they have a system of government that can respond to their concerns and govern the country efficiently, and in which nobody has too much power. That requires a lot a fundamental constitutional change.
	The Government's approach to constitutional reform, the Committee has argued, has been ad hoc and piecemeal. The reforms that we have been talking about will determine the direction and nature of our institutions for generations to come, so we must get it right and it must be done properly. Therefore, we need an underpinning set of constitutional principles based on a proper understanding of the position and role of Parliament in relation to other institutions of state. The reforms cannot be taken in isolation: one affects another.
	I do not think we have had a process that best achieves that; nor do I think that the roadshow will achieve it. As the hon. Member for Cannock Chase indicated earlier, there is a case for some form of constitutional convention or commission to take on a wider responsibility for ensuring that good, underlying principles are carried through into sound constitutional reforms.
	That is one of the lessons of devolution in Scotland and Wales. It was much more difficult to persuade people that constitutional change should take place in Wales, because there had not been the same process of constitutional convention as there was in Scotland. Now that devolution has happened in Wales, I would not advise anyone to put money on people voting in future to reverse the constitutional changes that created an Assembly and Government there. In Scotland, the process was made much easier by the fact that there was a substantial amount of agreement by a wide range of bodies, parties, and community institutions and organisations, about the direction of travel. Constitutional change needs to be properly underpinned, widely discussed and more ambitious than the Bill.

Douglas Carswell: This debate, I believe, illustrates what is so wrong with our constitution and demonstrates how dire things are, not because of anything that is being said, but by the manner of the exchange. Look how barely attended the Chamber is! We debate our constitution, yet the people's tribunes are not here. Whips scurry around outside desperate to gather enough speakers to try to keep things ticking along and running until 10 pm. The agents of the Executive try to create the illusion of debate-a debate with all the spontaneity of a Latin Mass. So moribund is our constitution, so monumentally useless our legislature, it is reduced to a talking shop, and it cannot even do that until 10 pm without prodding from the Executive. So much for our proud tradition of Parliament, so much for this legislature.
	There is much that is wrong with our constitution-a deep, deep malaise. The Justice Secretary galloped through some of the changes of the past decade, which he proclaimed as a blueprint for change. It is more like a blueprint to replace democracy with quangocracy. Power has shifted from those we elect to unelected officials. Those whose names actually appear on ballot papers no longer seem to have much actual say over public policy. Instead, key matters are decided, for example, by activist judges adjudicating on the basis of a bogus Human Rights Act. Public policy is formulated by an alphabet soup of quangos. We have the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the Child Support Agency and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency-the QCA, the CSA and the DVLA. In fact, there are so many quangos that they have run out of letters of the alphabet. FSA stands both for Food Standards Agency and Financial Services Authority; a food quango and a financial service quango.
	Nothing in the Bill will put any of that right. There is nothing to rein in the Executive, its agencies or the quango regime. There is nothing to restore purpose to this Parliament and nothing that will return dignity to politics. No wonder turnout has fallen in each election and no surprise that fewer bother to vote. It is not that the people are apathetic, but that the public have correctly clocked that our democracy is broken.
	The Bill ought to contain measures to renew our political system. What about a right of popular initiative? If people had a direct say over what the House debated, there would be fewer debates like this. There would be more time to consider issues that actually matter to people. Our agenda would be less the smug musings of a self-satisfied tribe in SW1. The Bill should contain provision for people's Bills to be included in each Queen's Speech. New Zealand has a right of popular initiative. It is compatible with, and complementary to, a system of parliamentary democracy. MPs would be obliged to vote for what people wanted them to debate, but they would no longer be able to ignore popular concerns.
	Constitutional change needs to include the power to recall MPs who are guilty of wrongdoing. I proposed a Bill to that effect last week, but the Justice Secretary did not actually support it. For all his smooth words, nothing happened.
	The Bill should address the balance-or, rather, it should address the imbalance of power-between the Executive and the legislature. Fiddling about with a Ponsonby rule will not do. We need to recalibrate the relationship between the legislature and the Executive-fundamental, radical change. It is not the Ponsonby rule that most explains how the Executive dominates this legislature, but the abuse of Crown prerogative over money and estimates, and over appointments and patronage. That is what has reduced the House. It has diminished hon. Members to being puppets of Whitehall and Ministers to being apologists to the Sir Humphrey Applebys.
	The House was given to understand that the legislature would approve key Executive appointments. Amid much fanfare, we were told how pre-appointment hearings would help to democratise the quangos. Yesterday, we saw a Secretary of State ride roughshod over legislative oversight. The Select Committee recommendations were just ignored. Pre-appointment hearings are, frankly, worthless. The Bill ought to provide for full confirmation hearings for quango officials and senior civil servants. No approval, no contract: that would rein in the quango state. Until that happens, there will be no meaningful scrutiny over Executive appointments.
	Likewise, we need in the Bill to reform how the House oversees finances. Estimates days are a charade. Supply estimates need to be more than just changed, as the Bill envisages. There is currently too little debate, too little oversight and too little scrutiny. Instead, Select Committees should be required annually to approve the expenditure of their respective Departments and the non-departmental public bodies associated with them.
	Proper legislatures in other parts of the world properly scrutinise tax revenue and how it is spent. Committees of Congress can go through budgets item by item. If we had that, those whom we elect might at last be able to make good on the tax-and-spend promises that they pretend are in their gift now. Giving Select Committees real power and independence, power to oversee finance, and one even to confirm ministerial appointments, would lead us towards the separation of powers that we urgently need.
	The Bill does little to improve our constitution. It is a product of SW1. Is it not the proud boast of the British left that they were once the party of English radicalism and the party that dispersed power away from unaccountable elites? The Bill focuses instead on the petty concerns of those elites in SW1-demonstrations in Parliament square and such like. There is nothing in this Bill that invokes the spirit of the Levellers or the Chartists. It will do nothing to fulfil the incomplete English revolution. It will do nothing to provide us with the far-reaching radical reforms that we so urgently need.

Andrew Turner: I wish today to address the proposals in the Bill to remove the hereditary principle of the House of Lords. The wish to remove peers is based on the seemingly arbitrary principle of how they were ennobled. That is a worrying portent for the future. It takes another step towards the Government's stated goal of a democratic second Chamber, and it is another example of the Government's scattergun approach to Lords reform. What is one day deemed valid is the next day cast aside. Though the remaining hereditary peers were retained in 1999, the Government now wield grand claims of democracy to advance the case for their removal.
	The argument over the future of the second Chamber is composition versus effectiveness. That is certainly the correct way to address this. However, viewed from the House of Commons, the wrong question is presented-the question of popular accountability. The House of Lords is built not upon the legitimacy of election, but the legitimacy of knowledge. The level of experience and expert opinion in the Lords cannot easily be reproduced through election. However keen the minds of those in this Chamber, few of us are held to be leading authorities or globally recognised figures on even the subjects that we hold dear. The experience of decades of work cannot be picked up from simply studying an issue-it must be lived. Peers contribute to a body of knowledge unique in the world.
	Therefore, the removal of the House of Lords would damage both the quality of legislation and the quality of government. The rush of legislation through this Chamber already leaves a mountain of details to be amended by the Lords. Without the revision that the Lords provides, we have a choice between significantly reforming this Chamber, and allowing the quality of legislation to diminish rapidly.
	The second part of this point is that the creation of an elected second Chamber would also undermine the quality of government. Many members of the other place have served with distinction. Ridding ourselves of such a pool to satisfy the demands of democracy is one thing, but ridding ourselves of individuals is utterly self-defeating. I think of the Marquess of Salisbury, the first Prime Minister of the 20th century. His Government passed, for example, the Naval Defence Act 1889, which ensured the Royal Navy's pre-eminence. I think of Lord Carrington and his integrity. He ended a lifetime of service by resigning on a point of responsibility which, sadly, does not echo as often as it should. I also refer to Lord Mandelson, who has sought so animatedly to reinvigorate this Government. Indeed, it is the appointment of Lord Mandelson and others that betrays the inconsistency at the heart of the Government's approach. They cannot, on the one hand, endow an unelected person with a senior position in the Government, and on the other, decry the same system that allowed them to do so. They cannot have it both ways. Is it not contrary to use such a wonderful resource while seeking to do away with it for future Governments? Does the willingness of this Government to use the Lords not legitimise its existence-an existence that the Labour party has lived with for 12 years now?
	As the Government are keen to point out, peers may not be accountable to the nation. But they are free from the concerns of keeping their seat. This independence would not be retained with an elected membership. Such a Chamber would simply end up mirroring the arrangements and partisanship of the Commons. Two Chambers, in which a Member's allegiance is as much to his party as to his conscience, would not be conducive to reasoned debate. Two Chambers, in which the Government command the majority and the timetable, would certainly not be conducive to effective scrutiny.
	Hereditary peers are, if anything, the epitome of independence. They carry with them a duty and a sense of loyalty that exists outside politics. I am very sad that the majority of hereditary peers have gone, but gone they mostly have. This Government, and Tony Blair's before them, have sought to end generations of successive service and instead replaced it with partisan appointment as and when they saw fit. To say one type of patronage is wrong, while promoting another, is nonsensical. More than 600 hereditary peers were removed because of their perceived lack of democratic credentials, but almost 400 life peers have been created since 1997, with the same apparent deficit.
	The proposals for an elected House simply advance this contradiction. Holding elections once every 15 years would simply create life peers who are willing to stand-once-for election. These people are likely to be picked or at least pushed by parties. If that were the case, all that the Government would have accomplished would be to create a new system of patronage after they had abolished the present one. Furthermore, I fail to understand how an individual's actions can be held to account if they serve only one term. How is a term of such length any more responsive to the will of voters than the lifelong terms at present?
	Ending the by-election of hereditary peers and beginning the sapping of their number represents a step toward an unknown constitutional settlement. I believe that it would insert more uncertainties and undesirables into the constitution than it could ever hope to remove. What is needed is not rapid change, but simply a limit on the size of the Lords, perhaps no larger than at the present level. That would curtail the power of patronage over successive Governments, with peers replaced as and when necessary. As Lord Hugh Cecil MP said, in early 20th century, on the subject of Lords reform:
	"Why rush into danger instead of staying in safety?"
	Finally, I would like to draw attention to the title of this Bill-the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. It contains very few provisions for the administration of this House. I question whether the Government are simply trying to win a symbolic victory outside this Chamber, when what is required is a substantive reassessment of what goes on inside it.

Edward Timpson: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the Second Reading of this Bill. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Carswell) that I am genuinely here to speak on the Bill and under no other pretence. I wish to touch on two parts of the Bill in particular-part 1 in respect of the civil service and part 6 on courts and tribunals.
	First and foremost, however, I want to develop some of the arguments made already this evening about the omissions from the Bill, many of which are extremely significant. It is fair to say that the Bill has received rather muted applause. It has been described as lacking in real zeal, as a mouse of a Bill, as trimmings rather than meat and by the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) as a pathetic little Bill. I shall be more charitable and call it a modest Bill, although the original constitutional reform plans have clearly been watered down since last year.
	The question is more what is not in the Bill than what is in it. Clearly the seeds of the Bill lay in the idea that there was a deep fracture at the heart of our democracy and that restoring public trust in the political system was a priority. For me, the heart of that is ensuring the independence of this House, and the genuine purpose of its power is to hold the Government to account.
	On 27 May, the Prime Minister said that one of his main priorities was the
	"strengthening of Parliament against the executive".
	I am still a relatively new Member of this House, but I have been exposed to the system of Select Committees, in which one of the first innovations in trying to provide greater scrutiny of the Executive through public appointments has been tried out. Sadly, I can feel only dismayed by the process that has been played out in the Children, Schools and Families Committee this week and last. I was led to believe that we, as Committee members, had a responsibility as well as a mandate to ensure that those public appointments, through the pre-appointment hearings, were genuinely in the interests of the public and that our word would be taken not for granted but with great seriousness and care by the Executive making the appointment.
	Despite the noises from the Government about wanting to open up the scrutiny of the Executive, we are left essentially with a charade in which Committee members-I include myself in this-feel no more than spectators of an Executive sport. It raises the question whether what the Government want to achieve is what we want to achieve. There is no point in holding pre-appointment hearings unless they have meaning. How can a unanimous decision by a Select Committee not to endorse a candidate for a prominent and important public post-the Children's Commissioner-not even be given a second thought by the Secretary of State when deciding on the correct person for the appointment, and simply be brushed to one side without any consultation?
	That is a huge disappointment, which reflects in many ways my concerns about omissions from the Bill. Where in the Bill will the patronage of the Prime Minister be cut? Where does the Bill address the Prime Minister's power to destroy or create Departments by subjecting it to parliamentary approval? Where in the Bill is the power for the introduction of annual debates in the House of Commons on all Departments' plans and objectives? We have heard from both sides of the House the desire to introduce greater scrutiny of the Government, particularly through the legislature, but we see in the Bill very little attempt to bring that about.

Bob Spink: The hon. Gentleman is talking about scrutiny of the Government. Does he share my concern that scrutiny is moving further away from Parliament, through the creation of quangos, which are growing like Topsy, employing more and more people, spending more and more public money and circumventing the normal democratic routes and controls? I know that he, like me, wants smaller government. Does he think that the Bill misses an opportunity in not setting targets to reduce the number of quangos and the amount that the chairmen and boards of directors of quangos can be paid-for instance, to the maximum of an MP's salary, which I think is a perfectly good salary? Would he agree with such a move? Would he like to debate that during consideration of the Bill?

Edward Timpson: I could not agree more on the proliferation of quangos, and also on the control that they exert and the lack of transparency within them. The point was made earlier that there are now so many quangos that they have to share the same acronyms. We need to look at where power lies. We need to ensure that the public not only have confidence in where power lies, but have trust in those who hold that power. With the current system of quangos, which is prevalent in many areas and particularly in education, not only is it impossible to hold the Government to account, but where quangos are seen to be at fault the Government can say that they are arm's-length bodies and absolve themselves of all responsibility.
	We heard from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) about the 12 areas of power that the Government were looking to shift. He could name only two-bishops and quangos-that had been affected and suggested that in fact the figure was perhaps only one and a half or one and a quarter, the half or quarter being the quangos. I would go further and say that the figure is just one, because the Bill does not deal with the power that quangos still hold or with our being able to hold them to account. My experience on the Children, Schools and Families Committee is an illustration of exactly how the Executive are still trying to hold close to their chest the power that we know should be much more readily accessible to us as both members of the public and Members of this House.
	There is more that we can do with Select Committees. We could have elected Chairmen. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich said, we could also open up Departments' finances to Select Committee scrutiny. That would send a clear message that the power of the Executive needs to be far more measured against the power of the legislature.
	Let me move on to some aspects of the Bill that, in the main, I welcome. I start with part 6, which deals with courts and tribunals. We have heard from other Members, particularly the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), about the judicial appointments system. It is clear that the process of judicial appointments has been subject to substantial change in recent years, as the Lord Chancellor acknowledged when he mentioned that judicial appointments would be best left as they stood because the system had been changed only a couple of years ago.
	However, there is a deeper issue than that in judicial appointments: how the current system is working. Only recently, we have seen substantial changes, with the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, which introduced a new Supreme Court and established the Judicial Appointments Commission. We then had the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, which made changes to the eligibility criteria. Now we see another, more symbolic change, in clause 35, with the Prime Minister being removed from the process of appointment to the judiciary in England and Wales.
	However, there is still a fundamental problem at the heart of judicial appointments: the backlog that has developed in the appointment of judges and recorders in particular. We know that there is a shortage of judges in our courts, particularly in the family division. I declare an interest as a non-practising barrister at the family bar. It is clear that we are short of good, well-qualified family judges, but we are also just short of family judges. The slowness of the process has dragged things out to the point where a lot of extremely high-calibre candidates are waiting to go through the selection process to be appointed to the bench. If things are not brought forward, they may feel frustrated and we would miss out on their great service.

Jack Straw: I should like to say two things to the hon. Gentleman about the judicial appointments process, one of which I should perhaps have said earlier. Although there have been criticisms, which I have echoed, about the process and about the lack of diversity, I think that everyone accepts that the quality of the selected candidates is as high as it ever was. That is of critical importance.
	Secondly, the hon. Gentleman obviously has experience of the family Bar, and if he has reasonably good evidence-it does not have to be cast-iron evidence-of delays or of how the system has operated unacceptably or been disruptive in the way that he has suggested, I would be pleased to hear from him. The chair of the Judicial Appointments Commission, Usha Prashar, is concerned-as are the Lord Chief Justice and I-to ensure that, even though the system has certain delays built in, we must make it work as swiftly as possible to avoid all the frustrations to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.

Edward Timpson: I would be very happy to write to the Lord Chancellor with a specific example from two of the circuits on which I have practised in the recent past. I would add that we have recently seen a 47 per cent. increase in the number of care applications to the family courts, and that that is putting additional pressure on the system. We need to be able to make the appointments when necessary on a regular basis, as well as to predict any rush of applications that would necessitate greater judicial input. That would ensure that we were able to remain ahead of the curve, rather than simply reacting to the situation, as is often the case in the courts system. I will be happy to write to the right hon. Gentleman on that issue.
	It is important that we have judges who demonstrate diversity, high quality and, of course, independence. I therefore welcome the review of judicial appointments to ensure that we have as robust a system as possible, to give us not only the best candidates but enough candidates to keep the judicial system running as efficiently as possible.
	There are small measures in the Bill with which I certainly do not disagree. They will provide a practical message in regard to what has been happening in reality and to the appointment of the judiciary through the Lord Chancellor's services, as it will now be, as opposed to through the Prime Minister. In many respects, I am more interested in the review that is now taking place to ensure that the system works as efficiently as possible.
	I also want to touch on part 1 of the Bill, which for the first time will put the civil service on a statutory footing. Some might say that we have waited quite some time for this measure-since 1854, in fact. I put it to the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills), that it is such a symbolic change, as well as a fundamental one, that it is surprising that it was meshed with other measures rather than put in its own, stand-alone civil service Bill. We should have had a separate Bill, but if the provisions are here in this one, they should be supported. They enshrine the core values of the civil service, and will go some way towards protecting its independence.
	The provisions leave the door open on the issue of retribution towards whistleblowers in the civil service, however. That issue was touched on earlier, and I hope that we will be able to discuss it in Committee, to determine whether the right protections and independence are available to all members of the civil service, particularly when those actions are taking place. The provisions are an important part of the Bill and, although I would have liked to see a stand-alone civil service Bill, I welcome the fact that the Government have moved forward in this way.

Julie Morgan: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that most civil servants are absolutely delighted that this is finally happening? Does he not wholeheartedly welcome the fact that, although it has taken many Governments and a long time to reach this spot, we have finally reached it?

Edward Timpson: As I have said, it is an extremely important part of the Bill. The provision is long overdue, but I agree with the hon. Lady that putting the civil service on a statutory footing represents an extremely important step forward for civil servants. My point was that because of its importance it should have the status of a stand-alone Bill, so that when we look back through the legislation, we have something to hang our hat on and say, "That was the Act that set in stone the statutory footing of the civil service." It should be enshrined in that way. We will have to make do, however, with what we have got.
	The Bill is modest and could have gone so much further. Indeed, the Justice Committee itself deemed it a disappointment in not going further. We have heard from many Members this evening about the opportunities that the Bill has missed. There remains concern that it will still be hard to get all its provisions on to the statute book, but that should not stop us from trying to get some important measures through. I hope that we can develop some of these arguments further in Committee. I join the Lord Chancellor in looking forward to the untimed Report stage, which I know he has committed himself to. I hope that it will give us enough time to debate some of the wider measures discussed this evening more fully on the Floor of the House.

Philip Dunne: I rise to cover two aspects of this subject-one included in the Bill and one not. Let me start with part 7, which deals with arrangements surrounding the Comptroller and Auditor General. I had the pleasure and privilege of serving on the Public Accounts Committee for two years, so I have some familiarity with the splendid work undertaken by the Comptroller and Auditor General and by the National Audit Office, which supports him. I believe it is appropriate for this Bill to cover some of the arrangements for the hiring and firing-if that is the right way to put it-of the Comptroller and Auditor General, so I welcome part 7.
	Needless to say, the Bill appears to have missed one or two aspects, which the Lord Chancellor, who I see in his place, may be able to pick up in case I have misinterpreted the clauses that relate to my concerns. The first is the appointment itself. Clause 37 covers eight aspects of the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General and subsection (7) states that the
	"person appointed holds the office for ten years."
	It is entirely appropriate to have a time limit on the appointment, because, although I am not casting aspersions on previous incumbents, it became apparent that there was no time limit only when Sir John Bourn reached an age when people were starting to wonder whether there was an appropriate point for him to retire; he decided to do so when he was, I think, 74. Having a 10-year appointment is thus entirely appropriate. The question it gives rise to is: in what circumstances should an incumbent retire?
	Provision is made for the incumbent to offer his own resignation, and Her Majesty, through an address from both Houses of Parliament, can also accept his removal and replacement by somebody else, but there is also a third eventuality, which the Bill does not address. That is that, if the incumbent reaches a certain age and becomes infirm, soundness of mind might become an issue-perhaps not to the incumbent, but to those who have to work with him or her. I have found no provision in the Bill for that to be taken into account with regard to a figure of such seniority within the accountability structure of the civil service and Government of this country. If the Lord Chancellor has any inspiration while I am speaking, or perhaps later, during the wind-up speeches, he might like to address that point.
	The second issue I want to deal with relates to clause 38(8).

Michael Wills: If the hon. Gentleman looks at clause 41, which is headed "Resignation or removal of the Comptroller and Auditor General", it might set his mind at rest. It states:
	"Her Majesty may remove from office the person who is the Comptroller and Auditor General on an address of both Houses of Parliament."
	That is an accepted procedure that also applies to other senior posts, so I hope that it provides the hon. Gentleman with some reassurance.

Philip Dunne: I have read that clause, and I referred to it earlier, but if the Minister is telling me that that is the form of words used for dealing with the eventuality that I identified, I take some reassurance from what he has said.
	The Minister may well be able to help me with my second concern, too. As I was saying, it relates to clause 38(8)(b)(iv), which requires
	"the National Audit Office to monitor the carrying out of the Comptroller and Auditor General's functions".
	Unless the Bill envisages a change in the relationship between the Comptroller and Auditor General and the National Audit Office, what the clause suggests is that the National Audit Office-of which the Comptroller and Auditor General is, in effect, the chief executive-should be the body to monitor the effectiveness of its own chief executive. That seems to me to set up a relationship that could give rise to conflict and confusion. In most organisations an entity other than the chief executive monitors the chief executive's performance, and that entity is normally the board or governors of an organisation rather than the body of which he is chief executive. Again, I may be missing something, but I invite the Minister to respond to that concern as well.
	The third aspect of the relationship about which I feel some concern appears in clause 38(8)(b)(vi), whereby the National Audit Office and the Comptroller and Auditor General are charged with developing a code of practice that deals with their relationship. Here we have the National Audit Office monitoring its own chief executive, and having to agree with that chief executive the code of practice according to which it would undertake its monitoring role. The provision seems to me to have been ill thought through, and I hope that either the Minister will explain what it means this evening, or an explanation can be given in Committee.
	I am also concerned about omissions from the Bill that relate to British citizens living overseas. Two particular categories concern me. The first consists of those who are already disfranchised by our present arrangements for participation in general elections in this country. Those who have lived overseas for more than 15 years are disfranchised, as the Minister mentioned when he appeared to be provoked by my intervention on the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) to point out that the issue had been discussed in the Chamber before. Indeed it has, but I think that the Minister may have been a bit hasty in leaping to his feet to deny that there were many people in that category, and to appear to deny that many other countries had more restricted arrangements than ours.
	In the Minister's defence, I accept that it is hard to get a handle on the numbers. The Foreign Office will reply to parliamentary questions, as it has from time to time. I believe that it produces an annual estimate of the number of British citizens who live overseas, and it is around 13 million.

Michael Wills: I am sorry if I have misunderstood the hon. Gentleman. Is he referring to people who are not on the electoral register because they have lived overseas for a certain period-which, under the existing provisions, renders them ineligible to be on the register-or is he referring to people who have a right to be on the register because they have not been expatriates for the period concerned, but the registration process has not caught up with them for some reason, and we have not been diligent enough in some respects? Which of those is the burden of his accusation, or is it both? If he can clarify what he has said, I shall be happy to give him as much reassurance as I can when I wind up the debate.

Philip Dunne: I am grateful to the Minister, who is being very fair in trying to get to the bottom of my concern. The short answer is that both categories exist, and in fact there is a third, with which I shall deal later. At the moment, I am focusing on those who are already disfranchised as a result of decisions made in the House.

David Taylor: I may be about to repeat remarks I made in the previous debate to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, but I do not accept the 13 million figure. That seems to me to be enormous, and probably includes the £10-passage people from the 1950s. The number of ex-pats registered in a typical constituency is pitifully low, and of those who are registered the number who use their vote is lower still, so what is the point of this?

Philip Dunne: I completely agree on both counts. The number of people who participate in our elections from overseas is pitifully low, but there are reasons for that, and they are built into the system we as a House have devised for allowing such participation. I shall come on to that.
	The 13 million figure includes some 3 million to 4 million of British national overseas passport holders who received their passports at the time when the Hong Kong colony was handed back to China, so they can be struck out of the 13 million. That gets us to a figure somewhere under 10 million. That figure is made up of estimates provided by each of our principal missions overseas as to how many British citizens are resident in the countries where they are based.

Michael Wills: This is an important point, and the hon. Gentleman will know from previous exchanges and correspondence with him and other Members that the Government take it extremely seriously. Every step we have taken in terms of electoral administration has been to make sure the register is as comprehensive and accurate as possible. Registration is key to that, including the registration of British citizens, wherever in the world they are, who are eligible to vote, subject to the statutes of this House. As that is crucial, will the hon. Gentleman be clear about these figures, because they are huge? As my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) has said, they are very significant figures, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree that the methodology is also very important. I would therefore be very grateful if he would let the House know exactly what question he asked of those missions and exactly what the reply was, as well as what methodology they used to reach their estimates, and whether it was the same for each mission.

Philip Dunne: I will be very happy to provide the Minister with the specific  Hansard references for the parliamentary questions that were asked, but I do not have that information to hand at present. When he looks through his files and I provide him with the answer to his question, I am sure he will find that these estimates are made by foreign missions and given on an annual basis to the Foreign Office, which supplies the figures.
	These are not the numbers of people who are eligible; I completely accept that. They are the figures for the overall quantum of British citizens estimated to be resident overseas at any one time. That includes both the currently enfranchised and those who have lived overseas for more than 15 years and who are therefore by current rules disfranchised. It is of concern to me that that large category of an indeterminate number of people-I think we can all agree that many of the foreign missions do not know how many people are resident overseas, but that they estimate the figure-is currently disfranchised from participating in domestic general elections or by-elections to this place. They are also, in most cases, disfranchised from voting in the national elections where they happen to live, so they are, in effect, electorally non-existent. That seems to me to be fundamentally unfair, unjust and not in accordance with the principles of democracy that this House likes to uphold. It is a great shame that that issue has not been addressed in the Bill.
	The Minister said that many other countries have restrictions similar to ours in respect of the point of enfranchisement. I accept that the current rule is that if someone spends 15 years away they lose their right to vote. However, from answers to parliamentary questions and research I have conducted, I have found that not many other countries have voting rights more restrictive than ours. Within the European Union, I believe there are three: Malta, Cyprus and Denmark-and it is questionable whether Ireland has more restrictive rights than ours. That is a very small number of countries that provide a shorter period for which their nationals can continue to vote in their home country.

Michael Wills: The hon. Gentleman is making an important point. I wonder whether he would remind the House that it has examined this issue on several occasions. He will be aware, from his careful research, that the House decided to vary the period after which expatriates are no longer eligible for registration. Will he remind the House of the arguments used to reach the current limit? Will he give his own assessment of the arguments made at that time?

Philip Dunne: The arguments took place before I was a Member of this House. I have, of course, read some of the debates, but I do not think it would be right for me to rehearse all those arguments, because they range over a large number of topics. I should say that one of the main arguments used was that once people have left this country, they no longer pay tax here. That is not true; a large number of expatriates continue to pay tax in this country-for example, tax on their pensions or tax on property that they may have here. A large number of these people also have family connections here; even if they themselves have severed their links with this country, their families may well be educated here.

Francis Maude: The Minister asks my hon. Friend what the arguments were when the House decided this. The Minister talks as if the House took a wholly free decision to reduce the period from 20 to 15 years. That is not how I recollect it; the Government produced a proposal and, as they had a majority in this House that was well into three figures, they drove it through. There was no suggestion that there was a free, independent and wholly uninhibited debate on the subject.

Philip Dunne: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that comment. He has the benefit of having participated in those debates, whereas I do not. To develop my theme a little further, may I say that not only are the vast majority of EU countries much more liberal concerning the rights of their citizens to participate in their national elections-in essence, once a French citizen always a French citizen, and once a German citizen, always a German citizen, and, as such, those citizens are allowed to vote in their elections-but so, too, are other members of the OECD? The only country, aside from those that I have mentioned, to have more restrictive voting rights than this country is South Korea, and it has a particular reason for that.

Jack Straw: Let me take the hon. Gentleman back to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) raised with him. Since this arrangement for overseas voting was first introduced-in, as I recall, the Representation of the People Act 1983 -[Interruption.] Hon. Members say that that was done by consensus. I cannot remember what the final vote was, but I do recall some intense arguments in this House. This was at the high point of Baroness Thatcher's Administration and Labour Members were concerned-I make this point in a serious way-that along with the fiddling of unemployment statistics and much else besides, an effort was being made to fiddle the franchise. I shall return to the point very quickly, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In the event, the surprise for Members on both sides of the House has been-this applies to those who have been resident abroad for only three or four years, let alone 15 years-how few people have bothered to use this right. The proportion is far fewer than the 65 to 70 per cent. who turn out from a UK base.

Philip Dunne: I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor for making that point, because it takes me on to the second category that I wanted to discuss, which comprises 2.5 million people who we believe are eligible to vote; the Foreign Office believes this and I accept its figures, although they are still estimates. I am talking about the British expatriates who have lived abroad for less than 15 years. As he correctly says, a small proportion of that number participate in elections in this country, so I will return to the relevant question that was posed by the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire. The reason why very few of those people participate is because we make it almost impossible for their vote to count. At the previous general election, in 2005, 17,000 British expatriates participated; I believe that that was more or less the number who were registered, so the turnout among those who had bothered to register was quite high.
	Today-as at the last time of calculation-there are only 14,000 such people, as evidenced by a response to a parliamentary question. Only 14,000 people, out of 2.5 million, are registered. We have to ask ourselves why. The Lord Chancellor and his colleagues will say that it is because they have no interest-they have left the country, they cannot be bothered and they are no longer engaged with the political process in this country. It is possible that a proportion of the 2.5 million feel that way, and that that proportion is similar to the proportion of the domestic population who, regrettably, feel sufficiently apathetic about our election process and politics in this place not to participate in voting.
	Let me explain one or two of the practical difficulties of participating in a general election in this country for those who happen to live abroad.

Michael Fabricant: Does my hon. Friend not agree that if one is living abroad, one feels a sort of disengagement and feels isolated from realpolitik in the UK? Despite the fact that so many people have Sky boxes-they are illegal, I might add-in Spain and elsewhere, they cannot feel involved and do not feel the need to get involved in a general election.

Philip Dunne: As I was saying earlier-and as my hon. Friend will have heard-I think that there is a case for saying that some of our citizens abroad feel disengaged. However, I am not seeking to address that audience-I am seeking to point out to the Minister that the deficiency of this Bill is that it does not address the practical steps that could be taken by anybody who wants to encourage those who have the right to vote from overseas to do so.

Michael Wills: The hon. Gentleman has been very generous in giving way, and I appreciate it. He raises an important point, which is difficult and complex. He is probably aware that 3 million to 3.5 million people in this country are eligible to vote but are not on the register. There are all sorts of problems with that, and it is enormously difficult. Most electoral registration officers are very diligent in trying to get everybody who is eligible on to the register. We have laid duties on them and given them new powers, more or less with the support of the whole House. Those duties include sending out regular canvass forms and making house-to-house visits. If we are to believe the Leader of the Opposition, we live in an age of austerity. I hope that the hon. Gentleman-perhaps he can confirm this-is not suggesting house-to-house visits for the 2.5 million expatriates to whom he has referred.

Philip Dunne: I am certainly not, but I am very glad that the Minister raises that point. One challenge for any Administration, and for any individual electoral registration officer, is identifying where the people who are eligible to vote live. Were we to follow the practice that the Minister suggested that I might be heading towards, we would have to knock on the doors not just of expatriates but of everybody who happens to live abroad. We do not know where they live. The Foreign Office missions do not keep a full register of British expatriates resident in their country. Every ambassador to whom I have spoken on this subject-I have touched on it with a number of them-says, "If only we could have a system whereby we could identify where expatriates live." They would like to have access to such a system so that they could fulfil some of their statutory duties in the event of an emergency, or whatever.
	We require our citizens overseas to register annually. Citizens within the country are, as the Minister has suggested, sent an annual reminder of who is on the register for their property, but those who are resident overseas are not sent a reminder. If they do not bother to register or if they are not prompted to do so by some diary note that tells them that their registration will fall due, they fall off the register. That is a major inhibitor to people remaining on the register. People have to register every year, whereas many other countries have registration that lasts for the duration of their Parliament or for a fixed period of time. Some countries have 10-year registration; I think that that would be innovative and would deal with the problem.
	The second practical problem for expatriates is that they have to have their identity confirmed on the registration form by another British citizen who is also on the register. As we know from our earlier discussions, only 14,000 such people live overseas. Many people who might like to vote while living overseas cannot, because they cannot find anybody who meets the criteria and is eligible to certify that they are who they say they are.
	The Government put forward a consultation on individual voter registration that was due to be published last June. We have not heard the results yet, so the debate has been moved not one step further. The fact that the Bill says nothing about voter registration is another deficiency, and a missed opportunity.
	Expatriates have the benefit of a very clear identifier. I am not allowed to use audiovisual props in the Chamber, but I am holding a British passport in my right hand. It has a single-number identifier, and allowing expatriates to verify that they are British by use of their passport number would overcome the problem of identity confirmation. I accept that there are some data protection issues, but unfortunately the Government have chosen not to go down that route, even though it would make it easier for people to register and therefore to vote.
	I have tried the patience of the House and Ministers perhaps a little too long this evening, so I shall end by saying that people abroad who register to vote have to do so remotely. Most do so by post, which works well in the UK. Participation in postal voting by citizens resident here is rising each year, and I welcome that.

Peter Bone: My hon. Friend has not touched on the question of registration by service personnel overseas. At the last election, whole swathes of them were denied the right to vote. Does this Bill do anything to rectify that?

Philip Dunne: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for referring to armed services personnel. The Government, with the Ministry of Defence and service chiefs, have taken steps to increase significantly awareness of voting among armed forces personnel overseas, but there is no doubt that operational risks are involved. We have all heard the rumours that British Forces Postal Services in theatre are at risk of being closed down for security reasons. That would mean that members of our forces currently serving in Afghanistan might well be denied a vote if a general election were to take place very soon. That would obviously be a tragedy; if possible, our servicemen and women should not be deprived of the opportunity to vote.
	My point about postal votes for people overseas has to do with the date by which candidates are able to withdraw their nominations from the ballot. That date is so close to the day of the election that ballot papers cannot be printed-and therefore posted overseas-until 11 days before the ballot. The result is that ballot papers arrive overseas approximately one week before polling. Many people cannot be certain, therefore, that their ballot papers will get back to the relevant constituency in time to be counted, even if they sign them and put them back in the post on the same day that they receive them.

David Taylor: The hon. Gentleman is talking about the alleged difficulties of registration. However, my registration authority is one of many to register voters by text or email, so that is not a problem. Secondly, on the question of returning ballot papers, the fact that expats retain strong links with this country means that they will undoubtedly know people in the constituency where they are registered whom they can trust to cast a proxy vote.

Philip Dunne: I agree with the first part of what the hon. Gentleman said, in that it would help if expats could register using modern technology. However, they are not allowed to, as they have to complete the form. My understanding is that the Electoral Commission does not allow electoral registration officers to accept registration from overseas by electronic means, because it is not satisfied with the present security arrangements. The technology is there, but it is not yet being used.
	On the hon. Gentleman's second point, the evidence suggests that after five or 10 years, many people who move abroad may not have family or friends in the area they left. For instance, 18 or 19-year olds who go abroad to university may decide to stay overseas; although they might have been eligible to vote as teenagers, they no longer have people they can call on to exercise their vote for them.
	However, the hon. Gentleman is right to say that a proxy vote is the only way that expat citizens overseas can be certain that their vote counts. Asking people to participate only by way of proxy invites them, in effect, to give away their vote. That is a difficult thing to ask people to do remotely.
	I conclude by regretting that the Bill does nothing to ease the participation of eligible voters or to facilitate voting for many British citizens who are disfranchised at present. That is a great shortcoming and failure of fairness in the Bill.

Julie Morgan: I am pleased to welcome the Bill as a further stage in constitutional reform. This Government have a great record in bringing about constitutional reform, most notably in respect of devolution. When they came to power in 1997, one of the first things that I as a Welsh Member was involved with was bringing devolution to Scotland and to Wales. I remember feeling that it was an exciting occasion, notable for the fact that the Government were devolving power away from the central state. I was pleased to be here and to be part of that process.
	As the Chairman of the Justice Committee said, it was easier to take that process forward in Scotland than in Wales, because in Wales there was less history of different bodies working together. There was strong support for devolution in Scotland, whereas in Wales people had to be convinced before they would agree to it. Since then, there has been much greater acceptance of devolution and a greater feeling that this is the right way for Wales to go.
	Devolution has now been accepted in Wales, and a convention is in place and looking at future powers for the Welsh Assembly. There is nothing in the Bill that further extends powers to Wales, but I would like the Government to agree to a referendum on further powers if that is requested by the Assembly in future. The progress of devolution in Wales has been steady and is moving to the point where the people of Wales want more power over their own affairs. Although there is nothing in the Bill to take that further, I see it as a further step in constitutional reform.

Peter Bone: The hon. Lady is making a powerful point about a missed opportunity. The Bill could have dealt with referendums, including one on increased powers for the Welsh Assembly. Could it not also have included a right to a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, for example, or on the European Union?

Julie Morgan: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I would have liked the Bill to include provision for a referendum for Wales.
	I shall deal briefly with two parts of the Bill, the first of which is reform of the House of Lords. Most parties in this Chamber support a wholly or almost entirely elected House of Lords. The measures in the Bill which relate to the House of Lords are another step in that direction. It is good that there will be an opportunity for Members of the House of Lords to resign their seats. Some Members of the House of Lords were called the people's peers. The history of their attendance and their involvement in the House of Lords suggests that some of them do not show a great deal of commitment to that House. They should have the opportunity to resign their seats. There are notable exceptions-in particular, Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, a close neighbour of mine in Cardiff, who has been an outstanding Member of the House of Lords and an outstanding people's peer. Others have also made huge contributions, but recent research shows a huge variation in that group's attendance, and there should be an opportunity for some to leave. Many such peers would probably like to leave, so the provision's inclusion in the Bill is a good thing.
	The Prime Minister can appoint someone to the House of Lords to take up a ministerial appointment. It happens frequently and has always happened under all Prime Ministers, but there is an issue if that Minister resigns after a certain period but is left with a peerage and a seat in the House of Lords indefinitely. That should be looked at. Many people who were appointed in that way were brought in because of their expertise, and they have a lot to contribute, but they may not want to take on the role of a Back-Bench peer, so the opportunity for them to resign will, again, be a very good thing.
	Getting rid of the remaining hereditary peers is another step towards a wholly or almost wholly elected House of Lords, and I hope that that measure will be in all parties' manifestos at the next general election. It has taken a long time to reform the House of Lords, but there is one big block on any reform: the legislation has to go through the House of Lords itself. Reform has taken longer than many of us would have wished, but we have moved further down the road.
	I turn now to the issue of the Prime Minister's ability to appoint people to the House of Lords as Ministers, and whether those Ministers should have to be Members of either House. Is there a case for the Prime Minister being able to appoint people who do not have to be Members of either House, but who could come to the House of Commons to account for their actions? It is unsatisfactory that Secretaries of State who sit in the House of Lords cannot come here to answer to us in the House of Commons, so certain things need to be looked at and there should be further change.
	I made it clear in an intervention that I welcome the Bill's civil service provision. We have been waiting for a stand-alone civil service Act for some time, and the inclusion of the provision is a good thing. I particularly welcome the establishment of the Civil Service Commission and the requirement for appointments to the civil service to be open to competition and made on merit. It has become more customary in the civil service to advertise appointments externally, and more customary for people from the wider community to be able to apply. However, that is certainly not true of all appointments, and it is difficult to obtain a civil service that is representative of the population if many appointments depend on internal civil service recruitment. The range of women and people from black and minority ethnic communities in the civil service has improved in recent years. However, there is no doubt that the requirement that jobs should be openly advertised and open to competition, and specific efforts made to reach groups that are less well represented, is bound to improve the situation in the civil service by making it more representative of the country as a whole.
	I welcome the Bill as another step in the constitutional reform that this Government have done so well on-it will take us further along that track.

Francis Maude: It is a pleasure to speak at the perhaps somewhat premature end of this debate, which has been reassuring to some extent but also slightly depressing. It has been reassuring because debates on Bills of this sort bring out the best in the House, in many ways, and the tone has been reflective, thoughtful and serious in addressing very important issues; but depressing because it has been poorly attended, especially by Labour Members, and because so much of it has been about what is not in the Bill, not what is in it.
	That reflects what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) said at the outset when he rightly dilated on the grandiloquent claims made by the Prime Minister at the inception of his premiership about how he was going to bring about a great constitutional renewal: he talked about a new settlement using very fine, splendid and high-sounding phrases. We have been through several iterations of draft Bills, White Papers and Green Papers along the way. As my hon. and learned Friend said, the mountain laboured and brought forth a mouse-not a ridiculous mouse, as the phrase generally has it, but a rag-bag in terms of constitutional reform. To adapt the phrase, it is a modest little Bill with much to be modest about.
	We warmly welcome the civil service parts of the Bill, which are my principal concern. This legislation has been talked about for a very long time; I think that the commitment was made by John Major's Government in the late 1990s. It has been a long time in gestation, and here it is, given birth to at long last. We hope that it can come into effect shortly.
	It is interesting how much of the debate was not about what is in the Bill, but what is not in it. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), in a typically intelligent, temperate and thoughtful speech-he was very unpartisan in his approach, as we have come to expect-talked persuasively about the need to adopt a holistic approach as regards constitutional reform. He referred to the dangers of making piecemeal changes without giving sufficient thought to the ramifications of change and the interaction of different parts of our mysterious constitution, and the need to be looking at these changes in the round. We would all agree with that. We look forward with keen anticipation to the ex cathedra pronouncements from the Public Administration Committee, which he chairs, on the role of the House of Commons and its relationship with the Government.
	The hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) was another who talked about what the Bill lacks. As one would expect, he spoke about the need for electoral reform; we did not agree with him, but he made his case and we listened respectfully. He also talked about the hole in the Bill that might have been filled by provisions on party funding. The need for such provisions persists as strongly today as it did when the Hayden Phillips discussions were embarked upon three and a half years ago, when Tony Blair committed the Labour party to being willing to make the profound changes needed to tackle the abuse of union funding, which has made it difficult to make serious progress on party funding reform in the mean time.
	I am sorry that I missed nearly all the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Carswell), but I suspect that he talked about the case he has eloquently been making for recall provisions for Members of Parliament. They may not always be comfortable with such provisions, but he is right to make the case for them.
	There has been a certain amount of discussion about the provisions on House of Lords reform. The Lord Chancellor's defence of the proposals was interesting. I do not believe that anyone would claim that the current arrangements are in any way what we would want to start with. No one would design the system to look as it currently does. It is a vestige, a residue, of the unfinished reform of the second Chamber embarked upon by the Government 11 or 12 years ago.
	The point is that the system was deliberately left as an untidy remnant, as an earnest of the intention to pursue full reform. It was meant to be an irritant, and it was deliberately and explicitly left in place as such by the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, to hold the Government's feet to the fire and ultimately make them deliver reform of the House of Lords. Parliament is entitled to treat it as a breach of good faith for the Government now to come along, without any justification or any serious case for the steps taken in the Bill being necessary, and remove the impetus on a Government to persist in pursuing long-term reform. The House is entitled to resent that.
	I wish to say a little about part 1, which deals with the civil service and is effectively the first half of the Bill. We welcome it, and it is long overdue. The system that has existed for so long-a civil service that is independent and impartial, and to which an incoming Government cannot make wholesale, sweeping changes in personnel-is a great strength of this country. There has been a debate going on throughout my political lifetime, and I suspect for a long time before, about whether we should change that and introduce scope for much more appointment, along the lines of the American system. There, the senior echelons are removed and appointed by an incoming Administration. We do not believe that we should do that, because the system is capable of being made to work extremely well.
	We are pleased that the Bill will entrench the duty of impartiality, and we accept and support the case that has been made that the existence of special advisers, who are now desirably to be controlled by a code protected by statute, provides civil servants with a protection against their impartiality being eroded by Ministers. However, if we are to put into statute an obligation on civil servants to be impartial, there should ideally be a symmetrical requirement on Ministers to respect that impartiality.
	There were ripples of unease at the weekend when  The Sunday Times reported that Lord Mandelson had sent a letter around Whitehall that appeared-I would always want to give the noble Lord the benefit of the doubt-to suggest that he was urging the civil servants who form the Government's communications operation to deploy what are effectively Labour party slogans in the sensitive period in the run-up to a general election. That would risk abusing civil service impartiality and it is right that the head of the civil service should treat very seriously any attempt to erode it. Governments will always test those boundaries-that is kind of in the nature of things-but it is important that the Cabinet Secretary, who is the head of the civil service, is robust in resisting it. If the Bill goes through before the general election, as we hope it will, there will be some statutory reinforcement of his role in protecting that impartiality.
	It is important that we understand what is meant by this concept of impartiality. It obviously does not mean independence in the sense of civil servants being empowered to do what on earth they like. The obligation of impartiality is to deliver what the lawful Government of the day lawfully set out as their policies. It is important that Ministers listen to officials' advice. They should seek it confidently, and be willing to challenge and interrogate it. They are not obliged to take it, but they should always seek it and hear it.
	I recently spoke about the episode in the life of this Government when the Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, sought to introduce his tax credits scheme. It is now well attested that officials in the Treasury and the Inland Revenue advised very strongly that his proposal could not be administered without risk of fraud, and almost more importantly, of very serious error. He persisted and said, "I don't care. This is my policy. You're the civil servants, you go and deliver it." He ignored the advice. The result was a system that has caused immense distress and human misery to hundreds of thousands of hard-working people on low incomes, who suddenly found themselves traumatised-that is not an exaggeration-when they received demands from the Revenue to repay several thousand pounds in overpaid tax credits.
	Those hard-working people had done their best to do the right thing. That episode was the result of a Minister-an arrogant Minister, I would say-not listening to the advice that he was given by civil servants, who were not being political but were simply giving impartial advice about the effects of implementing a particular policy in a particular way.

Michael Fabricant: Does my right hon. Friend not illustrate the difficult balance that Ministers must strike? They quite rightly want to drive through Government policy, but at the same time they must listen to civil servants' impartial advice and to special advisers, who quite rightly will have the ideology of their party in mind, but not perhaps the practicality of implementation. That is why it is important that Ministers have the ability to make good judgments, which is difficult when they are given such contradictory advice.

Francis Maude: My hon. Friend makes a good point. On the tax credits episode, the special adviser in the Treasury, who was notoriously the intermediary between the Chancellor and Treasury officials, is now Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. He was described on the radio yesterday by his hon. Friend-that may be the wrong way to put it-the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) as a "bit of a bully". When pushed, he said, "Well, actually, he is a bully", not being inclined to wrap things up. That sort of arrogant approach is, "No, we know best, don't bother us with these pettifogging details about how to implement this, just go and do it." The consequence has been a lot of misery for many hard-working people and families on low incomes.
	The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) referred to the article that appeared in  The Times on Friday, which seemed to suggest, in a rather hysterical way, that we had secret plans-even though I had announced them, admittedly in the obscurity of the Conservative party conference, 10 days previously-that amounted to a politicisation of the civil service. That is absolutely not what our proposals would involve. I was heartened to say that the report of what I was apparently proposing received the endorsement of the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Watson), a notable blogger, who published in his blog on Friday a post headlined, "In praise of Francis Maude". I found that most encouraging-these days one welcomes praise and support from wherever they come. The hon. Gentleman is in a position to know as he was until recently a Minister in the Cabinet Office with responsibility for civil service matters.
	It is important to stress that we are not talking about giving Ministers the uninhibited right to hire and fire civil servants. That would be in conflict with the provisions and protections that will rightly be put in place by the Bill, but Ministers who are rightly accountable to this House for the conduct of their Departments must have the ability to ensure that their policies are delivered. This is not about hiring and firing officials, but about building on a broadly beneficial innovation that this Government introduced-the departmental boards. These did not exist when the Conservatives were last in government, and have since been introduced by this Government. It is a pity, however, if-as in most cases-these boards are attended only by officials. Some are or have been chaired by Ministers, and we think that that is the right approach, because by bringing together politicians and officials they provide an opportunity to create a genuine collective leadership that can be really powerful in giving direction, purpose and energy to a Department. The boards have non-executive members, but at present some 90 per cent. of departmental and public sector board members come from a public sector background. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is a missed opportunity to bring in non-executive board members with serious experience in running big commercial organisations. Such people would be able to transfer their skills and experience to interrogate proposals and check up on their implementability.
	We have said that, in extremis, we would expect non-executive members of a departmental board to be able to recommend to the head of the civil service and the Prime Minister that a permanent secretary who was an obstacle to delivery of the Department's objectives should be removed. Without such a last resort power, the proposal would be seen to be window dressing, and the kind of people who could deliver great benefits for the taxpayer and the users of public services by improving their efficiency and quality would not be attracted to make that contribution.

Jack Straw: I am listening to the right hon. Gentleman with care on this issue. I have not done a statistical analysis, but in the Foreign Office there were two non-executive directors, both drawn from the private sector and both very good. I am sure that, whatever the rubric said, had they thought that the permanent secretary, or indeed the Foreign Secretary, of the day was beyond the pale-which was in fact the opposite of the case-they would have told the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Secretary. I have also seen people with wider public sector experience who have been just as good. Surely the crucial point is not to take an ideological view. We need to look at the qualities that people can bring to these jobs, their independence of mind and their experience.

Francis Maude: I agree with much of that, and I am delighted to have the Lord Chancellor's endorsement of our general approach. It is most heartening and encouraging. I accept that many of the non-executive board members are independent and have lots of experience, and that their presence is very beneficial. I certainly would not say for a second that we should not have people with a public sector background on these departmental boards or public body boards. There are many benefits to be had from that.
	This is a time of great financial constraint, however, and it will be imperative for the Government dramatically to sharpen up their financial management. That constraint will definitely apply, whichever party wins the next election, and the Government will have to ensure that the taxpayers' scarce pounds are translated into the best possible public service. It would be a great wasted opportunity, therefore, not to recruit to those boards people who are used to driving change through big private sector organisations. At the moment, to a limited extent, that happens, but it could be much enhanced.
	This has been an interesting, reflective and thoughtful debate. We are concerned about parts of the Bill, but are keen for it to make progress. We support it, therefore, but with some exceptions.

Michael Wills: We have heard many serious and thoughtful speeches that have treated our constitutional affairs with the dignity and respect that they deserve. The right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) made such a speech. I was particularly interested in his comments about the civil service, most of which we on the Labour Benches agree with. Sadly, the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) was not one of those serious and thoughtful speeches-my regret is sincere, because I have great respect for the hon. and learned Gentleman. I suggest to him that abuse is no substitute for argument, and his memory no substitute for the facts.

Dominic Grieve: rose-

Michael Wills: I shall substantiate my point.

Dominic Grieve: Will the Minister give way?

Michael Wills: All right, I will.

Dominic Grieve: The Minister said earlier that I was wrong about the national anthem, but in fact I was spot on. Lord Goldsmith, who was asked by the Prime Minister to carry out a review of Britishness, recommended that we might wish to change our national anthem. In one clause of the review, he said that he felt that one of the verses from the 18th century might be regarded by the Scots as offensive.  [Interruption.] Indeed, it might! It is all there. The Minister challenged me on that point, but I got my facts right.

Michael Wills: It was out of great respect for the hon. and learned Gentleman that I tried to persuade him not to intervene on me on this point. Had he remained seated, he would have heard what those facts are. He said-I think  Hansard will bear this out-that the Prime Minister, not Lord Goldsmith, made those comments. Had the hon. and learned Gentleman done a little more research in the interim, he would have discovered that Lord Goldsmith, when he made those comments, was not a member of the Government. I ask the hon. and learned Gentlemen to listen to what No. 10 Downing street said, because he could have found it out just as well as I did before he made his speech. This is precisely what I meant. At the time of the review, Downing street said:
	"This does not reflect the Government's views. We are proud of our national anthem and the traditions it represents".

Andrew Turner: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain how someone can be in favour of the words of the national anthem one day, as a member of the Government, and later be against them?

Michael Wills: I have already made the point that the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield fundamentally misrepresented what the Prime Minister said on that subject. He could have checked it out, but he did not. Lord Goldsmith was reflecting views that were given to his independent commission.

David Howarth: Will the Minister give way?

Michael Wills: I know that I have a bit of time, but I want to make some progress.

Andrew Robathan: Go on!

Michael Wills: No, I will not give way yet. I will give way many times, but-[Hon. Members: "You've only just started."] I have indeed only just started and I will give way many times, but I want to address a fundamental point. We heard several times from Conservative Members, starting with the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield, that the Bill was a mouse-I think that "a modest Bill" is the phrase that the Conservative Whips put out and which was repeated many times. The substance- [ Interruption. ] I am only reflecting what Opposition Members said.

Edward Timpson: Will the Minister give way?

Michael Wills: No, I will not give way, because I want to address the point, if I may. I will give way to the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) and then to the hon. Gentleman when I have gone through this list, but first I would like them to listen to some facts, because facts were sadly absent from the speech that the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield gave. He spoke about 12 issues on which the Prime Minister made pledges in July 2007. Let me run through them.
	The first is the power of the Executive to declare war. The draft Commons resolution on the processes for the deployment of armed forces has been the subject of extensive discussion. It has been prepared and will be presented shortly. On the power to request the Dissolution of Parliament, the Modernisation Committee is conducting an inquiry into Dissolution and recall, and quite rightly so. The Government proposed to the Committee in March 2008 that when the Prime Minister proposes the Dissolution of Parliament, he would have to have a vote on that in the House before it could go ahead, so there has been progress on that too.
	On the power over the recall of Parliament, the Modernisation Committee-the correct place for this to be considered-is also conducting an inquiry. The power of the Executive to ratify international treaties without a decision by Parliament is dealt with in the Bill. On the power to make key public appointments without effective scrutiny, measures on that have already been introduced. Proposals on the power to restrict parliamentary oversight of our intelligence services were debated and approved in their entirety by the Commons on 17 July 2008. Proposals for an appointment procedure similar to that adopted by the Commons were also approved by the Lords without debate on 13 November 2008.
	On the power to choose bishops, the Government have removed the Prime Minister from the process. There are proposals in the Bill on the power exercised in the appointment of judges. On the power to direct prosecutors in individual criminal cases, the Attorney-General has decided not to make key prosecution decisions in individual criminal cases except if the law of national security requires it. Powers over the civil services are dealt with in the Bill. On the Executive powers to determine the rules governing entitlement to passports, the Government have decided in principle that we will introduce comprehensive legislation on the procedures for issuing passports after an extensive consultation. Draft legislation will be published before that consultation.

Dominic Grieve: Will the Minister give way?

Michael Wills: I will finish my comments on the 12 issues and then I will give way, but with all due respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman, he is third in line.
	The courts already scrutinise the exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy. Twelve pledges were made, and 12 more or less fulfilled, as the record shows. The record speaks for itself.

David Howarth: There is a new meaning of "more or less" in there somewhere, because the provisions on the Attorney-General, for example, are not in the Bill and the document on the prerogative powers basically says, "It's all fine now." However, I want to return to the points that the right hon. Gentleman made to the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield about the national anthem. He did not answer the hon. and learned Gentleman's other point, about the fundamental debate about the national motto. Did that debate come to any conclusion? I thought at one stage that the national motto should be "Mustn't grumble."

Michael Wills: I am saddened to see the hon. Gentleman, who is a distinguished lawyer and an intelligent man, falling into the same trap of getting his research from the  Daily Mail. It has never been part of Government policy to introduce a national motto. The Government have committed to seeing whether we should have a statement of values, and we will do so through a series of deliberative events where the British people will decide. The party that the hon. Member for Cambridge represents is in favour of having such deliberative events and of a constitutional convention based on exactly the same deliberative principles in relation to the statement of values. I shall return to this matter later, because the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield mentioned a letter of mine earlier, and I want to share it with the House.

Several hon. Members: rose -

Michael Wills: I shall give way first to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr. Timpson), then to the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield, then to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart).

Edward Timpson: May I take the Minister back to his suggestion that the term "modest Bill" had come from the Whips? I would like him to reconsider his position on that. He is welcome to look at my notes, which are in my own handwriting, and which contain the word "modest". On this occasion, I am going to take credit for that description, rather than the Whips.

Michael Wills: Of course I accept the hon. Gentleman's word on that. It is a great tribute to him that the right hon. Member for Horsham adopted his terminology exactly; he obviously has a great future in his party.

Dominic Grieve: The Minister mentioned the power to give directions to prosecutors. He wants to have precision in these deliberations, and he must know that the Prime Minister's proposals were effectively watered down and discarded as a result of the intervention of the Attorney-General. To suggest that the end product amounts to what the Prime Minister originally proposed is complete and total nonsense.

Michael Wills: With all due respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman, he needs to look at what the Prime Minister actually said, and what has actually been done.

Pete Wishart: We have heard about the national anthem and the national motto, but whatever happened to Britishness day? That issue has never been addressed. The concept was universally popular in Scotland, and I think that the proposed date was that of the signing of Magna Carta, which took place some 300 years before there was even a Britain. What has happened to Britishness day?

Michael Wills: Personally, I have always been very much in favour of having such a day, and I would very much like to see it happen. I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman is obviously regretting its absence, although I am not altogether sure why he is doing so. Anyway, I would be happy to carry on that conversation with him. Right, does anyone else want to intervene? Not yet? Okay, very good. On we go.
	The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield mentioned my letter to him about the deliberative events-[Hon. Members: "Read it out!"] I am going to read it out. I think that he referred to it as "hysterical". This is how it starts:
	"Dear Dominic,
	As always it was good to talk to you yesterday,"-
	that is true; it is always good to talk to you, Dominic-
	"but I am sorry you have ruled out participating in the deliberative events on a statement of values. The government's commitment is...to an innovative deliberative process which transfers the decision-taking from government to the people."
	I then expressed regret that you were not taking part in this, and went on:
	"Your refusal to take part in any way speaks of nothing but your party's unwillingness to engage constructively with the people we all serve on an issue that matters deeply to them. I regret this and, should you wish to change your mind,"-
	I very much hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will do so-
	"you would still be very welcome to take part."
	I now extend that invitation to you or to any of your colleagues who want to take part-

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Minister is continually using unparliamentary language.

Michael Wills: I stand corrected, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do apologise. I slipped from quoting from the letter into a direct address. I do hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will reconsider his position on this matter. Other parties are taking part and he would be able to play a valuable role in the process.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who is no longer here, raised a question about the public order provisions in the Bill, which I would like to address. He asked why certain conditions were not set out in the Bill, and I want to reassure him-I hope that he reads this in  Hansard tomorrow-that schedule 4 is very explicit about the powers that the police will have to impose conditions on demonstrations. The only additional power that the police will have around Parliament, above and beyond those that they will have in the rest of England and Wales, is the power to impose conditions on a demonstration to secure access around Parliament. Clearly, there are concerns about this on both sides of the House, and I would like to say that the Government have an open mind on these questions and will continue to engage with the House authorities and any interested Members on them.
	We heard a characteristically serious and radical contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright). I would like to take this opportunity to say that he has made a huge contribution to this Government's programme of constitutional reform over the years. We have heard a lot of praise for it-not altogether universally for this Bill, but I believe that every Member who has contributed to the debate has recognised that this Government have engaged over the past 12 years on a very serious programme of constitutional reform-and, as I said, my hon. Friend has played a huge part in the reform.
	My hon. Friend rightly pointed out that we do not have only organic change in this country, we also have decisive radical action. He is right about that, and I do not think that anyone would claim that this Bill represents a decisive moment in our programme of constitutional change, but that does not mean that it is not valuable or that everything in it does not play an important part in the continuing programme of constitutional reform. My hon. Friend rightly drew attention to the importance of measures on freedom of information, devolution and the independence of national statistics-and of course I agree with him.
	The hon. Member for Cambridge made a serious speech. He talked about special advisers, so let me respond briefly on that subject. We should say that special advisers are already clearly governed by transparent terms and conditions of employment. As my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor said, it is important to note that any transgressions of those terms are punished, but that that does not invalidate their existence. This Government were the first to introduce and publish a model contract and code of conduct for special advisers that clearly sets out what they can and cannot do and their relationship with the permanent civil service.
	We are going to table an amendment-this might be of particular interest to Scottish and Welsh Members-to make similar arrangements to those in place for our civil service in respect of special advisers for Scotland and Wales. Under the proposed amendment, the Minister for the civil service may publish separate codes of conduct for special advisers in the Scottish Executive and in the Welsh Assembly Government. Where separate codes are drawn up for special advisers in the devolved Administrations, the Minister for the civil service must consult the First Ministers for Wales and Scotland, who must in turn lay the relevant code before the National Assembly for Wales and the Scottish Parliament. I hope that that addresses some of the concerns that I know have been raised in both Scotland and Wales about that matter.

Mark Durkan: Northern Ireland is not referred to in the relevant part of the Bill. Was there any consultation with the office of First and Deputy First Minister; will the limits on the number of special advisers remain; and did the office of First and Deputy First Minister say that it did not want the system of annual reports on the numbers and costs of special advisers to be introduced for Northern Ireland as it is to be introduced for the other devolved Administrations?

Michael Wills: As the hon. Gentleman is aware, in Northern Ireland it is a separate civil service and different arrangements apply, but this is obviously an issue that we can return to in Committee.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) also raised a typically serious point about engagement with the public. I would say that the public do not regard this as a road show, as it has been so derisively referred to by the Opposition. The public are pleased to be consulted on these matters, they think it is important for them to be consulted, and they think it is important for them to have a say in these matters. We are going to give them a say-and it is a great shame that the Opposition parties do not seem to share this view.  [Interruption.] I hear a sedentary intervention coming from those on the Conservative Front Bench, saying "Name them." What I urge Conservative Members to do is to go on the Ministry of Justice website, where a recording of these events is available. They can then hear for themselves what members of the public think about these issues. If I were them, I would be a little more careful about questioning the public's judgment on these matters.
	I note my right hon. Friend's support for the proposal on short-term peers, and the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) also made an important contribution on the issue. We have noted his and other views; we will reflect on them and come back to report in due course.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) made an important point about House of Lords reform and the importance of devolution. I am very grateful to her for her contribution.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) started to make some very important points about the civil service. I am sorry that he was cut short by ill health, and I wish him a speedy recovery. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) also made some important points-about decentralising power-with which we agree. However, I take issue with him slightly over his assumption that decentralising power and diffusing it-which, in my view, is a wholly benign process-should involve only local authorities. Of course they are an important part of the process, but we also need to devolve power much more directly to people.
	The hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Carswell) made a characteristic contribution about the importance of direct democracy. The hon. Gentleman makes many very good points. He has clearly understood the mood of the British people, as I think all Members have, but I would caution him about being quite so cavalier as he sometimes is about jettisoning representative democracy. I was glad to note that on this occasion he put Parliament at the centre of any reform process.
	In the context of direct democracy, it might behove all of us to reflect on the experience of California. As the hon. Gentleman will know very well, 100 or so years ago California was beset by a similar constitutional crisis when the people of that state began to lose trust in their political processes. In the end a raft of measures of direct democracy were introduced, including propositions and referendums. Very recently-just last week, I believe-the chief justice of California called the system dysfunctional. I do not think that a healthy, judicious introduction of measures of direct democracy-recall, for example-would in any way fundamentally compromise our system of representative democracy, but it is important that we do not jettison it.
	A number of Members referred to the measures allowing peers to stand down and perhaps to stand again for election to the House of Commons. The Bill is designed to ensure that there is a framework allowing the House to deal effectively with discipline issues. We have seen the need for that in recent months, and I hope that everyone will be able to take advantage of it. It is right and proper, however, that in all other aspects of public life politicians are able to resign from office should that be the honourable thing to do, and we consider that the House of Lords should also form part of that process.
	This has been a very useful debate. I think that the Bill is generally welcomed by Members in all parts of the House. The hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) returned to a subject that I know is dear to his heart, the registration of voters living overseas. As I intervened on his speech a number of times, I will not deal with all his comments again, but I want to make two points. At the end of his speech, he referred to the requirement to register annually. I think that that is a fair point, and I will look at it again constructively. He also referred to the need for an identity to be confirmed by passport.
	The hon. Gentleman was intervened on by one of his colleagues, the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone), on the subject of service personnel, which I take very seriously indeed. I recently met representatives of service families to discuss how we could increase registration among service members. I have written to many Members inviting them to make suggestions, and I shall be very open to any ideas about how we can improve registration among service personnel, particularly at this time. I have offered a meeting, and I have not received many responses from Members so far, but I ask those who are actually listening to what I am saying-including those whose constituencies contain service personnel-to contact me with their suggestions.
	We have had a very useful debate. I think that there has been a general welcome for the Bill, although many Members disagree with some of the detail and many believe that it should have gone further. This is not the end of the process, but the Bill is an important part of a continuing programme of radical reform, and I hope that the House will support it.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Bill accordingly read a Second time.

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM AND GOVERNANCE BILL (PROGRAMME)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A (7)),
	That the following provisions shall apply to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill:
	 Committal
	1. The Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House.
	 Proceedings in Committee
	2. Proceedings in Committee of the whole House shall be completed in four days.
	3. The proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 and 2, Schedule 1, Clauses 3 to 19, Schedule 2, Clause 20, new Clauses relating to Part 1, new Schedules relating to Part 1, Clauses 21 to 25, new Clauses relating to Part 2, new Schedules relating to Part 2, Clauses 26 and 27, Schedule 3, Clauses 28 to 31, new Clauses relating to Part 3, new Schedules relating to Part 3, Clause 32, Schedule 4, new Clauses relating to Part 4, new Schedules relating to Part 4, Clauses 33 and 34, new Clauses relating to Part 5, new Schedules relating to Part 5, Clause 35, Schedule 5, Clause 36, new Clauses relating to Part 6, new Schedules relating to Part 6, Clauses 37 to 43, Schedule 6, Clause 44, Schedule 7, Clauses 45 to 49, Schedules 8 and 9, Clause 50, new Clauses relating to Part 7, new Schedules relating to Part 7, Clauses 51 and 52, new Clauses relating to Part 8, new Schedules relating to Part 8, Clauses 53 to 56, remaining new Clauses, remaining new Schedules, remaining proceedings on the Bill.
	4. The proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on the fourth day.
	5. Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to the proceedings on the Bill in Committee of the whole House.
	 Consideration and Third Reading
	6. Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
	7. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
	8. Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on consideration and Third Reading.
	 Other proceedings
	9. Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed.-( Mr. Watts .)
	 Question agreed to.

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM AND GOVERNANCE BILL (MONEY)

Queen's recommendation signified.
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52),
	That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, it is expedient to authorise-
	(1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of-
	(a) any expenditure incurred by a Minister of the Crown or the National Audit Office by virtue of the Act, and
	(b) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable by virtue of any other Act out of money so provided, and
	(2) the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of-
	(a) amounts required for providing the remuneration packages of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the chair of the National Audit Office, and
	(b) amounts payable in consequence of liability for breach of duty in relation to audits, examinations and inspections carried out as part of the Comptroller and Auditor General's functions. -(  Mr. Watts.)
	 Question agreed to.

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM AND GOVERNANCE BILL (WAYS AND MEANS)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52),
	That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, it is expedient to authorise-
	(1) the imposition of charges to corporation tax in relation to transfers of property, rights and liabilities, and
	(2) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.- ( Mr. Watts.)
	 Question agreed to.

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM AND GOVERNANCE BILL (CARRY-OVER)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 80A),
	That if, at the conclusion of this Session of Parliament, proceedings on the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill have not been completed, they shall be resumed in the next Session.-( Mr. Watts.)
	 The House proceeded to a Division.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.

The House having divided: Ayes 276, Noes 113.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Business without Debate

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Mr. Speaker: With the leave of the House, we shall take motions 7 to 11 together.
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Capital Gains

That the draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Guernsey) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 17 June, be approved.
	That the draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Jersey) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 17 June, be approved.
	That the draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Virgin Islands) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 17 June, be approved.

Constitutional Law

That the draft National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Social Welfare) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 25 June, be approved.
	That the draft National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Exceptions to Matters) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 25 June, be approved.-( Mr. Blizzard .)
	 Question agreed to.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Ordered,
	That the Motion in the name of Secretary Jim Murphy relating to Rule 56 of the Parliamentary Election Rules shall be treated as if it related to an instrument subject to the provisions of Standing Order No. 118 (Delegated Legislation Committees) in respect of which notice of a motion has been given that the instrument be approved.-( Mr. Blizzard.)

ACCESS TO PARLIAMENT (UNITED KINGDOM MEMBERS OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT)

Resolved,
	That the Resolutions of the House of 30 January 1989 relating to House of Commons Services and 6 December 1991 relating to Access (Former members and United Kingdom Members of the European Parliament) shall cease to have effect insofar as they relate to United Kingdom Members of the European Parliament . -(Mr. Blizzard.)

REGIONAL SELECT COMMITTEE (WEST MIDLANDS)

Motion made,
	That Dr Richard Taylor be a member of the West Midlands Regional Select Committee.-( Mr. Blizzard.)

Hon. Members: Object.

REGIONAL SELECT COMMITTEE (YORKSHIRE AND THE HUMBER)

Motion made,
	That Mary Creagh be discharged from the Yorkshire and the Humber Regional Select Committee and Mr Austin Mitchell be added.-(  Mr. Blizzard.)

Hon. Members: Object.

REGIONAL SELECT COMMITTEE (SOUTH WEST)

Motion made,
	That Linda Gilroy be discharged from the South West Regional Select Committee and Roger Berry be added.-(  Mr. Blizzard .)

Hon. Members: Object.

POWER CUTS (NORTH-WEST KENT)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. -(Mr. Blizzard.)

David Evennett: I am very grateful for the opportunity to raise the important matter of power cuts in my borough of Bexley in north-west Kent in the week commencing 20 July. There are a number of issues that I would like to raise in relation to the event, the impact that it had on my constituents, the response of network operators EDF Energy, and matters that need to be considered going forward. I hope that the Minister will consider carefully the points that I will raise in the debate, as well as contributions from colleagues. These issues are of great concern in our area of south-east London and north-west Kent. Locally, there is great anger and concern about many aspects of the incident, as well as about how it has been dealt with and the consequences of the power cuts.
	I am very pleased to see my neighbour, the hon. Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate), in his place. His constituents were heavily affected by the power cuts, as were mine. I am also delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire), as he has an active interest in these matters. My hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) is also with us to listen to the debate this evening.
	I shall begin by informing the House of the background to the debate and to the incident. At around lunchtime on Monday 20 July the power failed across our area. Subsequently we were advised that vandals had broken into an access point to the Dartford creek cable bridge and caused what was later described as malicious damage to the cable infrastructure. That affected supplies to 93,000 households in Bromley, Bexley and north-west Kent. Traffic and street lighting were also affected. Some households in the south of Bexley borough were cut off for a very short period before having their power restored, and experienced no further problems.
	However, Bexley residents in Slade Green, Erith, Crayford, Bexleyheath, Barnehurst, Welling, Belvedere and Thamesmead, and residents in Dartford, were not so fortunate and suffered because of the prolonged power cuts. In the immediate aftermath, many contacted my office here in Parliament, seeking information about what had happened, as they were unable to find out much information.

James Brokenshire: My hon. Friend is making a number of important points, of which a significant one is the issue of information and the inability to provide it in a timely and effective manner. Can he comment on his own experiences and those of others who, I have heard, felt that they were literally cut off, not knowing when the power would come back on or the cause of the power cuts, and feeling a sense of insecurity as a consequence?

David Evennett: My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I shall come to that a little later. There was indeed a feeling that people did not get information; they were cut off, they did not have the internet, and the recorded messages from EDF were not updated, which caused real concern.
	The first contact that my office had was to say that there had been a power cut and that engineers were out working on the problem. Like my hon. Friend, I was appalled at the lack of information given to me and my constituents. It was not until the following morning, Tuesday, that we were advised of the severity of the situation. EDF subsequently reported that it was seeking to put residents on a power cycle, which meant that they would get three hours with electricity and six hours without, in order that some customers would have some power supplied.
	EDF circulated information the next day about postcode sectors that would receive the three-hour bursts. It was at that time that the massive problem was identified, which would have a considerable impact across the area, particularly in Slade Green and Crayford. We established that, owing to the network infrastructure, power bursts could not be provided there. The consequences were massive, and I shall highlight them later in my speech. We were advised later on Tuesday 21 July that although some people were getting supplies, 10,000 were unlikely to get any power in the foreseeable future.
	Those who were able to get information about the power cycles could limit the impact and plan ahead, but many more could not. Power would sometimes be restored to households in the middle of the night; some of the information about the power cycles was inaccurate; postcode sectors did not get the bursts that they were expecting until later; and some sectors never got them at all. Many were not able to make use of their three-hour cycle because they were at work or were out. It was not until 6.30 on Thursday morning that the vast majority had power restored.
	The lack of information about the incident has been shocking. Only last night did EDF offer me a briefing note about the incident. Since the summer, its silence on the incident has been deafening. I have had responses only to letters and e-mails that I have sent, which says something about how proactive EDF has been.
	Since the power failure, scores of constituents have contacted me about the incident, questioning how and why it happened, and the response of EDF. The company claims that the incident was caused by malicious damage to the network, and that therefore the power cut was not its fault. There is some truth in that statement. However, nobody has forgiven EDF for allowing it to happen. EDF's response to the incident was inadequate, as it clearly had no contingency plan in place for such an incident. It obtained some generators, but only the most vulnerable got power on the first night. It was not until the next day that more generators were in place. It attempted to contact sheltered housing schemes, and some it successfully did contact. However, it claims that owing to data protection laws it was unable to contact vulnerable network customers. Little was done to help people in tower blocks, and information that was provided online was not much use. I am really concerned about the lack of consideration that has been shown to my constituents, especially those in Slade Green and Crayford. In the worst examples, people were cut off for up to 70 hours. They did not receive generators or three-hour bursts.
	The public meeting held at St. Martin's church in Barnehurst on Thursday 30 July, organised by the vicar, Rev. Gareth Bowen, was well attended, and the anger that people felt towards EDF for allowing the power cuts to happen and for its response was overwhelming and clear. We heard of problems that families had feeding and bathing their young children, of pensioners trapped in tower blocks because the lifts were not working and stairwells were not lit, and of thousands of people who went without hot water for days. In Britain in 2009, that is quite unbelievable. Bexley council's social service teams made the effort to contact as many known vulnerable residents as they could.
	In most of the area, however, there was also financial loss as a result of the power cuts. Regrettably, many residents who shopped that weekend and had full freezers and fridges lost hundreds of pounds-worth of food. In addition, people had to have their alarms re-set at a cost to them. Even the Linkline alarm system in Bexley allegedly did not work for part of the time. Tropical fish were lost, and people have suffered considerable financial hardship. EDF got its response to the financial loss completely wrong. When challenged about recompense for the losses, its response was merely to refer people to their insurers. That has caused much anger, especially as the excess on most people's domestic policies is the same or more than the amount that they have lost. As a result of that advice, many people regard EDF as unsympathetic.
	EDF has repeatedly told us that, as the power cuts were caused by malicious damage and exceptional circumstances, the usual rules relating to compensation or the electricity guaranteed standards scheme do not apply; that it does not have to pay; and that it had agreed as much with the regulator. However, that is now not so clear, as Ofgem, the regulator, is still awaiting the results of an independent audit of the cause of the accident. Under the guaranteed standards scheme, residents who went 18 hours without power would have been due compensation of £50 plus £25 for each additional 12 hours. However, EDF has offered only a one-off payment of £50 for those who were without power for 24 consecutive hours. That decision has been met with disbelief, and it has caused people to mistrust EDF. Many people see the offer as a way of limiting the amount that EDF has to pay out. My constituents feel that it was inadequate and unfair, and I have to agree.
	EDF has written to all customers, advising them of the offer and telling them to apply for it by the end of the month, but the response to applications has been inconsistent to say the least. I have had constituents complain that they have not had a good-will payment, while their neighbour in similar circumstances has been granted it. Mr. and Mrs. Lee, of Crayford, attended my surgery last Friday. They have had to pay a call-out fee to fix their alarm and may have to pay more for further work. They also lost food and other things, and they alleged that they were advised on the phone that they would receive the payment. However, they were subsequently refused payment in a letter despite, they claim, other residents in the same street having received the money. I also have examples of people receiving the payment despite not meeting EDF's rules. One customer received the money without even applying-acquiring it in response to a letter of complaint rather than an application. That is unbelievable.
	Another concern is the imbalance in the level of payments to different parts of the constituency. An address that was without 24 hours' power is getting the same level of payment as those who were switched off for three days. That is unfair. These inconsistencies are furthering the anger felt towards EDF. There are now suggestions that EDF may have been wrong to limit the payment to those without power for 24 hours. Ofgem has suggested that people make their claims under the guaranteed standards scheme under the 18-hour rule, despite EDF's claims. Ofgem is still deciding whether the event was exceptional and whether EDF should take some of the blame.
	The deadlines for the good-will payment are imminent. I have outlined the concerns about what happened, and I would like to make a few suggestions about what needs to be done properly to address and acknowledge the impact that this has had on my constituents and others, and what can be done in the future to prevent such events from happening.
	The first issue must be the apparent complete lack of security at the point where the incident took place. Yes, EDF is responsible for tens of thousands of miles of network and cables, but my constituents do not understand why vandals were able to get on to the site and cause so much damage. Why was there no alarm at the gate? Why was there no CCTV at the site to capture images? Why was there no back-up for the network? I was astounded by that lack of security. EDF now claims that it will undertake a security review.
	The next point is about contingency. Why was EDF not prepared for this incident? Of course it did not vandalise the network, but better security could have prevented it. Contingency plans put in place for a large-scale network failure could have minimised the inconvenience and problems that my constituents faced. I am very concerned, too, about the problems faced by vulnerable people. It is shocking and worrying that EDF did not have a list of its more vulnerable customers. That needs to be looked into.
	My final point is about the financial loss and the good-will payment. In Slade Green and Crayford, there are some very underprivileged people who are not able to sustain the loss of a week's or a month's supply of food and were greatly inconvenienced financially by losing it. It is clear that £50 is inadequate to deal with their loss. Does the Minister think that EDF can claim not to be responsible for such losses? Is he satisfied that the system of payments is fair and reasonable? What will he be looking for in providers such as EDF ensuring better security on the networks for which they are responsible? Does he believe that this incident falls outside the guaranteed standards scheme?
	EDF failed to secure the site adequately, failed to implement adequate contingency measures after the incident, failed to assist large numbers of vulnerable people, failed to appreciate the problems they faced, and failed reasonably to recompense residents. I urge it to look at its good-will payments and think again.

Howard Stoate: I thank the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Evennett) and the Minister for allowing me to contribute to this debate. As they will know, my constituents in Dartford were particularly badly affected by this incident. Tens of thousands of houses were out of power for the full 64 hours and had no back-up power, not even intermittent supplies-absolutely nothing. The hon. Gentleman has eloquently set out the level of hardship felt by individual constituents, reflecting many of my own experiences, so I do not need to rehearse those.
	When I wrote about this matter to Lord Hunt, Minister of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, he replied:
	"The purpose of the Guaranteed Standards system is to encourage companies to provide acceptable standards of service, not to penalise them for events beyond their control."
	That is fair enough, but equally it is not fair to penalise customers for events beyond their control leading to power cuts that have caused them great inconvenience, loss and hardship. Many people have lost well over £100-worth of food and other goods that are not covered by their policy excesses. Many of my constituents find it extremely hard to meet the extra costs involved.
	Rather than bending over backwards to be fair to the power companies, we should remember that our first responsibility is towards ordinary customers in ensuring that they are treated fairly. Having seen the hardship caused to my constituents by these power cuts, I should like the exemptions to the guaranteed standards system to be scrapped altogether and full compensation to be paid to every customer who applies for it. Will the Minister review the current arrangements so that customers, who through no fault of their own, have suffered considerable hardship, are treated with at least equal fairness, and preferably with the balance of fairness in their direction? They deserve better than they have received.

David Kidney: I congratulate the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Evennett) on securing this debate on an incident that clearly caused much disruption to those who lost their electricity supply for a long period. This is a prime example of what an Adjournment debate is for-Members speaking up passionately on behalf of people in their area who have had a hard time, and in this case, seem to have been treated badly in the ways that he has described.
	Like the hon. Gentleman, I understand that the incident in question is likely to have been caused by one or more people breaking into a locked chamber adjacent to the cable bridge over Dartford creek. While they were there, during the afternoon of Monday 20 July, a fire was started. If there is a difference between us, it is that I understand there is some suspicion that the intention of those who broke in was metal theft rather than simply to cause damage. Nevertheless, the fire then destroyed four 132,000 V cable circuits. As he said, that resulted in more than 90,000 customers losing their electricity supply.
	There is an ongoing police investigation into the enforced entry to the bridge, and the police are of the mind that it was probably an attempt at cable theft. There has been a rise in cable theft in modern times, because of the high value of scrap metals, and the Department and the industry are aware of the problem and trying to make new plans and prepare better defences against the risk.
	Within hours of the start of the incident, and once it became clear that the restoration of some customers' supplies would be protracted, EDF informed my Department, as it was legally obliged to do. EDF instigated its emergency plans and started the process of supply restoration. As the hon. Gentleman said, about 31,000 customers were quickly reconnected to unaffected parts of the network. Overnight, further limited emergency interconnection was made available, enabling supplies to be restored to a further 45,000 customers on the rota disconnection basis that he described. Rota disconnection is used when there is insufficient network capacity to supply all customers simultaneously, so that blocks of customers are connected for three hours at a time to share out the available network connection.
	As the hon. Gentleman said, throughout the incident mobile electricity generators were deployed, with priority given to vulnerable customers and critical infrastructure. It was the largest deployment of mobile generators on the London network. The last remaining customers had their supply restored at 6.30 am on Thursday 23 July.
	In parallel with the restoration efforts, there was continuous work to repair the cable bridge and replace one of the damaged cables, but 132,000 V cable jointing is a highly skilled and time-consuming process. To achieve what was achieved in less than three days was a considerable achievement by the staff involved, and they deserve credit for what they did.
	EDF tells the Department that while customers were without electricity, it worked with local authorities-the hon. Gentleman confirmed that with his praise of local authorities-and enlisted the help of the British Red Cross to provide support for people in need. I give my thanks and praise to the local authorities and the British Red Cross for the contribution that they made.
	As for my Department's involvement, we have an emergency response arrangement and Ministers were kept informed of the progress of the restoration. We offered assistance to EDF if it was required. Officials were in regular contact with EDF during the incident, and afterwards an official visited the site on 18 August to see the progress of the repairs and assess the security measures that were in place. It was found that the damage done to the door and lock was still visible, but the undamaged end of the bridge was found to be secure and in a good state of repair. Methods of improving security or modifying the network to prevent such incidents in future have been discussed with EDF, and those discussions are ongoing.
	Electricity companies have a legal obligation to ensure that their network is designed and maintained to protect the public and consumers from the dangers of electricity and provide quality and continuity of supply. Those obligations are contained in the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002, which have been amended since, and are enforced by the Department. Furthermore, those regulations require a report of all major supply interruptions to be made to the Secretary of State. Typically, there are fewer than 60 reportable interruptions a year, and this was one of the most significant, and certainly the longest, for many years.
	The official who visited the site and discussed the incident with EDF is assessing whether there has been non-compliance with the regulations. A decision on that has not yet been announced. As a condition of their distribution licence, electricity companies are required to secure customer supplies in the event of such a fault. The loss of four major circuits could be described as more onerous than the networks are designed for. The cable bridge was installed late in the 1950s, at which time incidents of cable theft and malicious damage were not likely to have been specific design considerations.
	No electricity network can guarantee 100 per cent. supply reliability. There is an economic balance between the cost of the network and the degree of supply security, but in this country, electricity supplies are typically 99.998 per cent. reliable. Even with a good record on reliability, we must not be complacent. Between the Government and the electricity industry, emergency response arrangements are in place and are exercised regularly.
	The incidents considered range from relatively frequent storm events to the extremely remote possibility of a complete national blackout. That means planning, training and exercising alongside those likely to have a stake in a potential crisis, including the energy sector, local and regional administrations, devolved Administrations, and other Departments and agencies whose interests would be affected and whose assistance would be needed in such an event.
	Since the incident, EDF has placed 24-hour security at both ends of the bridge until additional security measures can be implemented. In the longer term, EDF is investigating the feasibility of rerouting some or all of the cables. A number of the methods being considered to achieve that would not have been a practical option in the 1950s when the bridge was built. An assessment is also being carried out to identify whether there are any similarly vulnerable parts of the network.
	On compensation, in addition to the disruption caused to those affected by the incident, many will have suffered a financial loss. EDF tells me that it has offered a £50 good-will payment to any customer who was without electricity for more than 24 hours. Owing to the exceptional nature of the incident, EDF has claimed an exemption from the guaranteed standards of performance, in accordance with the Electricity (Standards of Performance) Regulations 2005. Performance regulations were introduced in 1991 under section 39 of the Electricity Act 1989 and have been regularly updated to reflect changes in the structure of the industry.
	The regulations would provide larger payments to more customers if the exemption did not apply. That point was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate). EDF certainly did not consult me on whether it should claim an exemption. I have asked whether I can object to it claiming an exemption, but apparently the regulations do not provide for that. My hon. Friend asked whether I would look closely at the regulations in future, and I certainly will.
	I say this to my hon. Friend's constituents and those of the hon. Gentleman: any customers who lost their electricity supply and who dispute the application of the exemption are entitled to continue their dispute all the way up to the energy ombudsman, who would have to make a determination. Information on making a complaint to the ombudsman is detailed in EDF's complaints procedure, and on the energy ombudsman's website. For the sake of completeness, I should add that the address is www.energy-ombudsman.org.uk; and while we are all together, I thought it would be helpful to give hon. Members the number of the ombudsman's advice line, too: it is 03304 401624.

David Evennett: That is helpful.

David Kidney: Good.
	The larger payments would be £50 for domestic customers or £100 for non-domestic customers who were without power for 18 hours, and there would be subsequent payments of £25 for every successive 12 hours without power. Those payments are intended not to compensate consequential loss, but to encourage electricity companies to achieve good restoration times for more routine fault events.
	In addition to the exemption that EDF has claimed, it submitted an exceptional event claim against its Ofgem interruption incentive scheme targets. The hon. Gentleman spoke about that. The claim is still being assessed by Ofgem's independent auditors, to establish whether appropriate actions were taken to limit the severity of the event. From this determination, the immediate significance would be the effect on EDF's performance rating under the scheme; crucially, that would affect its regulated revenue. However, of course, if the ombudsman had to make a determination about the exemption, that might be relevant information to be taken into account.
	While this was clearly a significant incident that caused major inconvenience to the customers affected, the recovery from it demonstrates that the electricity industry retains the capacity and expertise to respond to such emergencies. The hon. Gentleman asked me to consider four suggestions. The issue of security has come back to our notice because of the growing incidence of metal theft, and prompted by that, we were already considering whether new levels of security would be required. Like the hon. Gentleman, I wondered about CCTV cameras in this day and age.
	I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the contingency plans of each energy company should be able to minimise inconvenience. I stress the extent and scale of this incident, and the staff who acted to put things right as quickly as they could did a good job. However, the hon. Gentleman does not think that the arrangements with the local authority and the Red Cross for the identification of vulnerable people so that they could be helped were sufficient, and so we will need to look at that some more. On the issue of compensation, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will have found the general comments that I made helpful.
	My Department takes the lead for the Government on resilience in the energy sector. We take our responsibility very seriously, including by having regular reviews of preparedness and a programme of exercises. Our review of the causes of this incident and the lessons to be learned from it is ongoing, and I assure the hon. Members who have taken part in this debate that we shall make available the findings of that review, and take action on any recommendations.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.